Paralyzed
by Tater Tots
Summary: Lea Setsuna is starting highschool again, but with a heavy raincloud overhead.Dark secrets from summer camp haunt her every step,& it doesn't help that an annoying spiky redhead keeps poking around her personal life.& Why does he resemble her so much? R
1. Prologue: A New Day, A New Nightmare

A/N: Another attempt at writing this. I like this version a _lot _better than what I previously had. I hope you guys enjoy this aswell. Sorry it's so short. It's kind of like a prologue...or something...  
Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, nor it's characters.  
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The small city of Twilight Town never looked so beautiful. The morning sky was streaked with clouds that reflected the rainbow of colors cast off from the sun. Reds and yellows clashed with the deep blue sky and glinted off the mashed-together houses and stores that made up the small but cozy town. Life came up with the sun; people woke up and looked out their window at something that was everyday beauty to them, but it never got old. Birds chirped and flitted about, stretching their wings and foraging for food. A dog barked somewhere, and the light autumn breeze tugged at the remaining leaves that were brave enough to cling to their bare branches. Everything was beautiful, and everyone was happy.

But there was one rain cloud that shadowed someone on this day, as it had been for some time. She got up not thinking that the sunrise was amazing, nor was she excited about another day unfolding. No, her thoughts were dark, filled with past horrors from her time during the summer. Summer ended today, but it would always follow closely behind her, these nightmares of hers. She was a flower, once radiantly beautiful, now trampled upon and withered. Her once vibrant, red petals now dull and torn, and her refreshing fragrance weak and unappealing.

This girl woke up every morning with the same feeling circling within her like a raging whirlpool. Each morning she gasped for breath, wanting life, but also yearning for her nights' sleep to be her last. The sun did not comfort her. Nothing did anymore.

This morning was different, however. When she woke up, she did not open the blinds to let the sun in – a hopeless attempt to achieve warmth. She did not get up with a clouded mind set precisely on a rehearsed schedule of shower, dress, eat, sit, eat, then sleep again. No, this morning her mind was buzzing with activity. She did not open her blinds because she desperately wished that it would not be day. That night would last forever, and that yesterday would always remain, and the earth to stand still so that today might never come.

Downstairs flesh and blood came to life, and a womanly voice floated upstairs and seeped into the door, making the girl's fears true. She gasped, a fruitless attempt to retrieve oxygen, and her emerald eyes shot open. The darkness swelled up within her, it climbed with tooth and claw up her chest, her throat, and into her head. It forced it's way through her eyes as it's poison burned at her throat, lumping up so she could not swallow.

Tears rolled down from her wide eyes, and she choked back a cry, but the monster boiled up, and then was released. Her pillow muffled her sobs and collected her salty tears, a few of thousands that had been soaked up from nights of her crying softly to herself.

One word that she had been dreading ever since _it _had happened. One word that meant Hell on Earth. It played inside her brain, biting and nipping at her conscious until she could no longer ignore it. One word:

_School._

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A/N: Sorry if it seems like I overexaggerated what every kid feels the day that school starts, but Lea has a reason to be so depressed about it...you'll just have to keep reading to find out...  
Anyway, please review! X3


	2. Sticks and Stones

Yay for an update! This chapter isn't much longer than the prologue (it's actually about 400 words longer...) but I had limited time to write it, so I'm happy with what came out in the end. Perhaps once I get enough time, I'll write a super-long chapter to make up all the short ones (because I know there are going to be more than one that's going to be short).  
Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, nor it's characters.  
enjoy.  
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Artificial light burned as artificial smiles were exchanged and received. Laughter, yelling, and hundreds of voices were cast about the hallways of Twilight High School like the thrashing of waves in a stormy sea. Bodies pushed and shoved through the crowds, though they had no destination. Perfumes and colognes heavily applied in the hopes of snatching a beautiful butterfly were suffocating, and the heat given off from a thousand teenager bodies intensified every odor and aroma that wafted around. The sun reflected brightly on the newly painted red lockers, the same lockers that rang throughout the building as students eagerly claimed what would be theirs for the next year. Sneakers, flip-flops, heels, and slippers pounded at the waxed linoleum floor. Hands brushed. Eyes glinted. It was the same every year. But one student did not join her peers as they pranced about excitedly, and she did not converse enthusiastically with her past acquaintances, though a few did manage to speak a word or two to her deaf ears before she slipped away into the pulsing crowd. She did not laugh freely nor did she smile. Her face remained stoic, her green eyes trained on the floor, looking up only to redirect her path-of-travel around human obstacles that ever stepped in her way. Deep circles that spoke of sleepless nights and haunted dreams accentuated her pale skin, deprived from sun and warmth. Though the long-sleeved shirt and baggy blue jeans covered up her delicate skin, she received no warmth, nor softness that the materials promised.

Down the brightly lit hallways she walked, and with each step her chest tightened with coming dread, a feeling that, like the darkness, spread throughout her whole body, but not without leaving poison behind. The threat of the dark monster releasing again left a bitter taste in her mouth. She swallowed and felt the action burn her throat. Listening silently her ears picked up the slowly increasing whispering, words that sliced through her and stung. Words like _emo_, _gothic_, and _anorexic. _They meant nothing and everything.

_Sticks and stone may break my bones, but words would _always_ hurt me. _

But who were they to judge her? They were a product of themselves, all with a label floating above their heads like a lost soul that had never learned to let go. Whether they agreed with it or not was not up to them. They all denied what was true. Even as the haunting words circulated around her, Lea tried to convince herself that they were false. But as they could not judge her, she could not decide what she was either.

Each step she took, she knew that she was getting closer to the Great Evil. It's presence haunted her everywhere; it's eyes followed her every move. It was the reason that _it _had happened during those summer days, a time that would have been blissful, _should _have been, had everything gone down the predicted path. But evil has a way of sneaking past the gates that bind it, and climbing into the human world.

The students around her resembled only shadows, their fake smiles the only highlight of their dark appearances. Lea could see past everything. Months of living in darkness trained her eyes to see the true nature of things, not just the pretty mask they hide behind.

The hall emptied suddenly. The clock that would sculpt their days was set. It ticked loudly in her ears. Tick…tick…tick…tick…

BBRRRIIINNNGG

It has started.

o.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.o

Emerald eyes, fiery, unlike their cold counterparts, glinted devilishly as they roamed freely about the young faces that practically threw themselves in front of him. He leaned his long body against the white brick wall of the cafeteria, arms crossed and one leg bent slightly in a relaxed, yet almost threatening position. Hair like flames that resembled the quills of a porcupine was swept back by many-a-nervous swipe of a large hand, and the sickly feeling trembled inside him, though no such quakes made past his rock-hard barrier and throughout his form. He, unlike Lea, was donned in an outfit that did not hide what he wanted to portray. A white and black-striped wife-beater, black skinny jeans, and black converse made up his overall appearance. Several bracelets clung to his wrists, and a necklace with an interesting charm hung comfortably from his neck. His well-toned body reflected his spiky attitude, but those things did not define him. Only one person knew who he really was; only one person had been able to go deep beneath his skin and stir him up 'till he was opened up completely. Only one. And that person was worlds away, it seemed. So close, but yet so far.

This young and very attractive individual, while leaning against the wall, seemed to cause quiet a distraction throughout the female population. They flapped and flitted about him like a flock of pigeons drawn to bird seed. He managed to shoo most of the cowardly ones away with a light glare, but the more daring ones continued to peck at him relentlessly. He shouldn't be surprised, in fact, he wasn't. At his old school in Destiny Islands there had always been a small flock of girls that trailed him, but he always chose to ignore their voiced adulation. His heart already belonged to someone, though it seemed to be an unrequited love.

His heart.

He grasped lightly at the front of his shirt, above where his heart was assumed to be. Even though he felt every pulse in his veins, every pound of the organ that pumped life into and throughout him, he still felt the aching sensation of complete emptiness. There was an invisible pull that tugged and pulled at his conscious, and it was this same strange connection that had brought him here, to Twilight Town.

_I will find what I was brought here for. I _will _find the missing piece of my existence. And there's nothing in this world that can stop me._

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A/N: YAY FoR AXEL HAWTNESS XD;;  
anywho, thanks to **TheSilentArtist **for reviewing! X3 gives you super-awesome cookie of awesomeness

R&R PLEASE! Tater Tots


	3. The Shadow King

ZOMG THIS CHAPTER IS SO EFF'ING LONG!! Which is why I haven't updated for, what? Two days? Three? I dunno. I had /finally/ finished it, and was going over to the upload section, and then my internet decided to crap out on me. I was like OMGWTFBBQ?! NUUUUUUUU!! TTATT!!  
But all is well now! I have it up!!  
There are exactly 4,500 words in this chapter o.o that's a lot (atleast to me...). Anyway, enjoy!  
Warning: There's some language in this chapter, and you'll probably see more of it in the future.  
Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, or its characters.

edit 8/21/08 I edited and added-subtracted some stuff. I'll probably be editing the other chapters as well.

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A thousand faces. A thousand voices. They were all trying to say something, but nothing could be understood. It was a roar, dull at first, then increasing in volume until the whole earth shook. Their shadowy forms blended and smeared together; their yellow eyes glinted in the darkness. They all called out for the same thing. Always the same thing. The rain poured from the black sky, but it did not affect the swarm of dark creatures that had gathered. Why here? _It had always been here..._a voice said. What had called them to this place? _The moon..._ What were they all calling out for? _The same thing that you are calling out for…_

A very startled spiky-haired teen bolted up in his seat, the back of his head throbbing where his teacher had hit him. Said teacher was standing before Axel's desk, a _World History _book at hand, and a scowl plastered on his face. The other students snickered and giggled, but ceased when the teacher, and Axel, fixed them all with a glare that could kill, or in Axel's case, burn holes through them. It was almost the end of History class. Axel had thought he had enough endurance to last through the entire period, but he was found wrong. _Damn…and we haven't even begun to study anything yet…_  
"Mister Lyulf, this is History class, not your own personal nap-time. Wake up and pay attention." Axel glared at his teacher's back as he walked down the isle and back to the white board. "Now, class, as I was saying…"

BRRIIINNGG

Saved by the bell. Everyone quickly got up and raced for the door, clogging the only exit as they pushed and shoved to drain out into the hallway and into the five minutes of freedom that was promised. Axel got up slowly, however, as he was still groggy from being forcefully awakened from his slumber. He stretched, earning himself a few pops from his back, a reward given after being slouched over the hard wooden desk for a good twenty minutes. As he made his way up the isle and across the room to the door, he mumbled an apology to Mr. Millbury who seemed surprised, but nodded.

"Just don't make a habit out of it once we begin to study things."

The hallway was once again flowing with students eagerly trying to get to their sixth period class, because that meant that the school day was almost over. Had it not been just this morning that these same students had been anticipating school? But just early this morning they had been safely secure in the false hope that homework wouldn't be distributed, but they were in _high school _now. Only the freshman didn't get any except the easy parental-signature syllabus that went home, informing the parents of just what their kid had signed up for.

Axel looked around at the young and naïve faces of the 'fish'. He chuckled. He had never been as gullible as a freshman had been expected to be. He'd also earned a respected name after the first two days, though he'd gotten himself several days in ISS and many after-school detentions. Fighting wasn't allowed at school. He knew better now. Coming to a new school he had assumed he was going to have to re-earn his place again, but he was surprised to find that he didn't have to bother here. Apparently all he had to do was _look _bad-ass, and he was got the part. But they didn't respect him. They feared him. Axel stepped out into the hall, and the current molded around him. Hitching his backpack farther onto his shoulder, he began to walk upstream towards his next class: Geometry. _Why do all the sophomore classes suck here? _

The sun outside shown brightly through the windows, and the rays glinted off every available surface. Fluffy clouds crawled lazily across the sky, bringing with them a breeze that spoke of the coming winter. Leaves rustled and skittered across the ground as the wind carried them to new places, whether that place be just across the yard, or to another part of the city. That's one thing that Axel had found likeable about Twilight High – the building had so many _windows._ Anyone could just look up, and they'd find themselves staring at something beautiful. Destiny High School did not, however. There were too many threats of storms that could have blown through, tearing and clawing until everything shattered into a million pieces and carried in the screaming winds to unsuspecting victims.

A scene unfolding further down the hall caught his eye. He moved quickly, pushing other kids out of his way, sometimes getting shoved back. He ignored them. It was that same feeling again. That same feeling from before, the one that had driven him half insane as it had twisted inside of him until he had finally given in and followed it here, to Twilight Town. It was a feeling of desperate hope. Of promise. A small pain jolted through his chest. The closer he got, the thicker the crowd was, the more desperate he became. _It could all be over soon. It'll go away, and I'll move back again to…_He stopped. Two girls stood in the spotlight: one with an angry expression twisting her face, the other he couldn't see. A group of tall guys – probably basketball players – were standing in his way. He pricked his ears to listen in on what was being said, or in this case, practically yelled.

"…why are you acting like this?! We used to be best friends and now you're all…all…_emo. _I mean, you could at least _look _at me!" The b-ball players made sounds of disappointment when they're hopes of a cat-fight on the first day of school were broken. They moved away, back into the reforming current, and a huge space was left open in front of Axel. He looked at the apparent wrong-doer, and stopped. His blood froze in his veins as he stared at the silent stick-figure girl shrinking in on herself as the other's words became harsher.

Then his chest exploded with a pain of which he had never experienced before.

o.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.o

The hallway was suffocating. A crowd of shadow-people with their fake smiles plastered onto their faces, now evil smirks, pressed in closer. Their dark bodies blocked out the sun, the warmth, and any exit Lea could have taken. They were wolves; saliva dripping from their gaping jaws; padding impatiently at the ground, drawn in by the prospect of blood. _My blood_. Some continued on down the hall, turning eye and ear away from her silent pleas. Other's just stood, watching. Waiting.

She didn't understand how this had happened. One minute she had been walking down the hallway, eyes cast down, trying not to bump into anyone, and the next she was prey being cornered and attacked. Lea had been trying to avoid her old best friend all day – eating in the corner at lunch, hiding behind people in the hallways; she did anything and everything to stay away from her. It just hurt too much to be around her now.

"_Lea! Hey! Wait up!" _She'd said. But Lea did not wait. _"Wait!" _She'd grabbed her arm and tried to spin her around, but Lea remained firm on her feet. She'd kept her eyes screwed shut, and her face turned away. Looking at her would only hurt. _"Stop. Ok? Just, stop. I know you've been avoiding me all day today. Why? Did I do something wrong? Did I say something to you at camp that- HEY!"…That place…_at the mention of camp Lea shuddered violently and then wrenched her arm from Amy's grasp and started to run. The action was useless, though; there were too many kids in her way. She had been caught again, this time Amy was not gentle when she had grabbed her. _"Hey! Don't run away from me! What the hell is your problem?" _She had yelled. That had caused a stir in the once-fluid motion of the hallway. Students had begun to stop as Amy's voice got louder. And now, _this._

It was cage, what the shadow-people had made, and she was locked inside with a ravenous tiger. Her claws were fearsome, her teeth were bared as she growled and roared. The Monster was rising again. It furiously tore at her as it tried to make it's way up. She tried to hold it down. The pain was becoming more defined, to resist it was becoming more difficult. She glanced up at the jeering faces, all smiling with pointed teeth, and gasped.

Emerald eyes met hers, and the shadows disappeared. _Everything _disappeared. The two souls that remained were surrounded by black; the only thing they saw were each other. The blood ran from her skin, it went deeper into her to escape from the blasting cold that enveloped her. His face reflected the same surprise that she felt, and then pain flashed in his eyes.

The monster screamed, and her chest exploded into fire. She stumbled back; a scream was choked back by a lump in her throat. Her books that she had been hugging protectively to her chest fell to the floor as her arms suddenly became limp. Ignoring Amy's calls, ignoring _everything,_ Lea turned, shoved through the barrier, and ran.

o.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.o

Stunned, Axel watched as the small red-headed girl disappeared around a corner. Immediately the pain in his chest ebbed away, but the connection remained, and was much more evident now. The crowd broke apart, whispering and gossiping quietly while throwing the brunette girl looks of hate, worry, or sadness. No one had noticed how the strange girl had looked at him. No one had seen the _fear _in her almost hollow eyes. Axel could still feel the waves of terror that had rolled off of her trembling body. It, too, was dying down as she got farther and farther away.

Looking back, he noticed a look of confusion, worry, and anger mixed together on the brunette's face. After a moment she rolled her eyes and then kneeled down to pick up the fallen books and papers, some of them now stepped on as absent-minded students tripped over them while trying to get to their class quickly. Axel bent and began to pick up some of the strayed papers, then got down next to the girl to help reorganize everything. Brunette-girl looked up and froze for a second, then looked back down again quickly to stuff papers into a bent folder. She shouldered her bag and stood up, Axel followed suit soon after.

"Here." She said and held out her hand to take the papers he held. She shoved them into another folder, and then tucked a loose stand of hair behind her ear. "Thanks." She said shyly. Axel gave her a half-smile and said "No problem." And then, with his hands shoved comfortably in the pockets of his black jeans, he turned around and walked away, leaving a very dazed girl behind in his wake.

……..

Axel did not immediately go back to class after his run-in with the girl that could be described as his identical twin. Instead he was prompted to walk outside while he cleared and rested his mind. He walked out the front doors without so much as a glance towards the people working at the front office, and, likewise, they did not notice him. Once outside, he took out a pack of cigarettes, or 'cancer sticks' as his friend had put it none too kindly one day, and stuck one loosely between his lips. Taking out his favorite lighter - a silver one with a skull engrossed in flames upon it - he flicked it to life and inhaled the sweet, sweet nicotine. It raced throughout his system, smoothing over his tense muscles and calming the screaming nerves in his brain. He exhaled and watched the smoke drift up and then disappear.

The breeze was still active as he walked slowly down the street, and it almost felt like he was back home, in Destiny Islands. He remembered when he and his friends would go and just hang out on the beach, talking and joking around, sometimes playing in the water, and then later just laying back and watching the stars at night. It sounds sappy, but those were the memories he turned to when his own dark monster threatened to come out.

He took another drag on his cigarette and, spotting a bench a few yards away, made his way over to it and sat down. He took out his cell phone and opened it. _Damn it. _NO MESSAGES, It read._ He must be mad at me still. _He closed his cell phone with a heavy heart and put it into his pocket. _Why does he have to be so god-damned stubborn? _

He watched with glassy eyes the people and cars that passed him by, all on a predetermined path. Their fates were all decided and planned out. But what of his fate? His thoughts returned to the scene he had witnessed earlier; to the skin-and-bones girl with the same flaming-red hair, and the same green eyes as he. It was weird, their resemblance. It freaked him out a little bit. _What if my mom had fucked some other guy, and she was my half-sister or some shit? _He thought, and didn't doubt the possibility. If that was the case, then he needed to find her and talk to her. _Maybe that's why she ran away. _He thought and took another drag on his cigarette. _Maybe she recogized me and got scared and ran. _The thought still didn't explain why his chest had begun to hurt so bad back in the hallway, or why his fate, some way or another, seemed to be tied to her. All these strange mental pulls and feelings in him seem to be all pointing towards her, but the harder he tried to understand, the more jumbled and criss-crossed his thoughts became.

He continued to try to peice together whatever weird clues he could think of to make a picture involving himself and his supposed twin, but the answers kept evading his wondering mind until he lost track of time completely.

_Fuck._ He sighed and rubbed his face and stood, throwing his cigarette down and crushing it underfoot. He shouldered his backpack and checked the time on his phone. _2:03…I've been out here for thirty minutes? Crap. Still got enough time to get back before the bell rings, though._ Even though it didn't really matter if he went back or not. By the time he did get back, He would've already missed his last two periods. _I just want to see her again though…just to be sure..._

The wind was blowing harder when he finally got to the school, and dark, looming clouds edged closer. _So much for nice weather…_He thought gloomily. A long line of parked and idling cars had formed in his absence, all driven by parents who couldn't wait for their kid to get home before they grilled them about homework and crap like that. Axel scoffed. _Thank god I don't have parents like that. Mine are too drunk to even realize that I'm missing. _He hurried inside after one particular blast of air whipped sand and dirt into his face and eyes. He cursed, swiping the dust from his hair and clothes, and blinking rapidly so as to wash away the annoying bits of dirt aggravating his eyes.

One of the ladies working behind the front desk looked up from tapping relentlessly at the keyboard in front of her, and frowned slightly when she saw him.  
"Can I help you with anything?" She asked in a nasally voice, her huge glasses magnified her eyes until she looked like an alien.

Axel, still pissed off from getting dirt in his eyes, fixed her with a glare and said in an agitated voice, "No I do not need help with anything." And then he turned and walked away, and down the hall. He walked around blindly for about a minute looking into the classrooms via the door window, but not glimpsing any vibrant red hair anywhere. So then, tired and dejected, he sat himself down by a series of windows, leaned his back and head against the wall, and closed his eyes.

Everything was black behind his eyelids, but as he searched around unconsciously in the void, a faint line began to shimmer to life. Startled, he opened his eyes and it disappeared. He looked around. The hallway was empty. Faint chattering from the neighboring classes drifted down the hall, but other than that no other sounds were heard. He closed his eyes again and waited until the line appeared once more, but when it did it came back with much more power. The brightness grew until he was forced to wrench open his eyes, but even then it still blinded him. His breath hitched in his throat as the light burned his retinas. His eyes opened or closed, the light remained, radiating warmth and pulsing softly.  
Suddenly it was all over. The light subsided back into it's burrow, waiting and building up until the next time it was called forth. Axel blinked rapidly, the panic that had been turning over in his chest now replaced with relief and wonder. _What the hell was _that_?_ He thought. An out-of-place object caught his eye, and he looked down to peer at it.

"What the hell…?" He breathed, his brows drawn together in confusion.  
It was a line very similar to a string but very thin and, at closer inspection, it appeared to glow slightly. And it seemed that one end was connected to his chest. He picked it up and held it loosely in his hand. It was as light as air, and felt warm in his grasp. He tugged on it and felt a jolt in his chest. _Weird…_He followed the line with his eyes until it snaked to the right and the end disappeared about five feet from him. He rubbed at his eyes, but it was still there. _Okay…so it's not a hallucination. But what is it…?_  
BBRRRIINNGG

o.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.o

The school shrilled its end, the scream echoing throughout the building, but was especially loud inside the girl's bathroom where a small form was huddled in the handicap stall. The taunting laughter reverberated within the tile-lined room, bouncing off the walls and hitting her again and again. It was a game of dodge ball with sound, and she was the target. The door opened and a gaggle of squawking geese entered. They stood in front of the mirrors and preened their feathers, scrutinizing their looks while openly envying each other's appearances. Everything they did was so _loud._ Lea buried her face deeper into her knees and clamped her hands down harder over her ears. Her body was racked with earthquakes that left deep ridges in her heart, and allowed the monster to squeeze it's poison through. Tears rolled down her pale cheeks and she gasped. Her chest hurt _so much._ The flock of girls had flown back into the hallway, eager to leave and continue to gossip as soon as they got home.

The noise out in the hall began to dissolve as the shadow-people all filed out to leave with their shadow-parents, whose fake smiles outshined their offspring's in more ways than one.

Wincing as she stood, Lea stumbled over to the sinks and held onto one for balance, keeping her eyes shut and her face turned away from the girl on the other side of the glass. She hadn't looked into a mirror for three months. She was terrified of what she'd see.

Cold water splashed on her face sent shivers down her arms and back and momentarily cleared her foggy mind. She gasped. Her hand jumped up to twist itself in the cloth at her chest, the other grasped the edge of the sink until the joints creaked in protest. Ever since that first time her chest had exploded, she had been having spasms of pain that sucked the air from her lungs and fed the monster with her strangled cries.

Staggering out into the hall she blinked and looked around. The sun was completely concealed behind grumbling masses of grey, darkening the hallway and ridding her of the false security of warmth that the rays had brought her. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.

The buzzing rectangles passed above her as she slowly made her way down the hall, her mind was filled with cotton but her feet unconsciously took her in the right direction, avoiding the straglers that drifted by quickly. Upon arriving to her locker, the monster began to act up, and she clutched at her shirt and leaned heavily against the cold metal. This episode was different than how the others had been. This time she could not keep the cries that scratched at her throat, locked away. They echoed down the empty halls like ghosts mourning their own passing. _I wish I was a ghost. I wish he'd killed me…_Then there would be no more pain. No day-to-day suffering that she has had to endure in silence. She couldn't tell anyone. _He _had made that perfectly clear when he'd…

She cried out. The pain was becoming unbearable. With shaking hands she hurried to unlock her locker, and then she looked on with confusion and distress at the empty space. _Where…?_

A sound whispered behind her, and she turned quickly, her wide eyes searching. Her blood ran cold. A sour feeling started in her abdomen, and then spread throughout her body; a feeling that made her sick, like a piece of stale bread that had settled uncomfortably at the body of her stomach. A chill swept down her spine like a cat chasing a mouse. Bile rose in her throat. The monster curled up in her head, waiting for it's release.

_N-no…_

"Hello Lea." His voice was deep, smooth, but it made her sick. His hazel eyes glinted evilly in the artificial light, a knowing look in them. His brown hair was spiked up stylishly, but she could see the horns that he tried to hide. His muscular build showed through the tight baby-blue t-shirt he wore, along with his blue-jeans. His smile, _that fake, fake smile,_ was tainted with horrible intentions. But soon it molded into a frown.

"Aren't you going to say anything back?" He said with a dangerous tone. Lea swallowed, but her mouth had gone dry. She felt like fainting.

"H-hello Brian." Her voice was coarse – she coughed to clear it. He smirked.

"That's better." His eyes, _those wicked eyes, _traveled down her trembling form slowly then captured her in their gaze again. An unbreakable hold. "You cut your pretty hair. That's a shame. I'd always liked it long." He reached to touch a lock of her hair, but she quickly slapped it away.

"D-don't!" She gasped out, then stopped. Her eyes grew wide with horror. Brian's face twisted from surprise to anger in one fluid motion, and he burned her eyes with his smoldering gaze. His hand clenched into a fist. _Oh, God, no…_

Lea flinched, shutting her eyes and waiting for the blow to come, for muscles to tense, bunch, then release, but a sound coming from farther down the hall interrupted, setting a blaze of relief and hope in Lea's aching chest.

Brian gave her one last killing look, punched the locker right beside her head, making her flinch again, and then shouldered his bag and walked away stiffly. A silent promise had been made, and another broken. He would come back, the promise that had been made said, and he would come back with a vengeance of unspoken fury. She'd know. She'd felt that fury before at…at…

Her limbs felt like lead, but at the same time they were air. She slumped back, her mind in a daze, but also racing with activity. But over every other feeling, over the pain in her chest, and the pressure of the monster in her head, over _everything_, she felt complete, unending, unadulterated _terror_.

Her lungs gasped for air. None came. Her eyes widened in the vain attempt to see beyond the black spots growing in her vision, but she could not. She grabbed at her chest, her fingers digging into her skin, but the pain only worsened. The red from the lockers bled all around her, until it was all she saw. Suddenly a face appeared before her, blurred by her tears but she still knew who it was. She blinked and wiped the tears away quickly, and turned to rummage in her locker. If only she had something in her locker to rummage with.

"Hey. Are…you okay?" He asked hesitantly, unsure of the territory he was stepping on. Lea breathed in deeply, closed her eyes, the let it out slowly. She filled herself up several times until she was confident enough to know that if she turned around, she wouldn't immediately burst into hysterics. She slammed her locker shut. The noise rang in her ears.

Thunder rumbled outside, and then the echo of rain hitting against the windows drifted down the hall to them. A few doors closed as the teachers began to make their leave - all tired from handling teenagers all day, and dreading the coming days to follow. Lea turned her head until the spiky red-haired boy was in her peripheral vision. Something sparkled, but then disappeared. She dismissed it from her mind. Then she took another deep breath.

"Please leave me alone." She whispered, and began to walk away. _I'll never be okay…_

o.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.o

The girl's pace quickened as soon as she was a hall away. The glowing line that had led him to her had disappeared in a flash of light as soon as he'd spoken to her. He thought she'd see it, too, but apparently not.

He had been following the line when he'd seen her pressed against the lockers with what looked like the football team captain looming over her. He didn't have to hear what was being said to figure that the dude was royally-pissed, and the girl was about to get hit. So he'd called out. Now the damsel in distress was running from him. Again.

"Hey!" He yelled. She didn't make any movement or noise that she'd heard him. He began to run after her. "Hey! Who are you?" He called. She began to run. He gave chase. Lockers and doors and hallways flew by as he struggled to catch up. She was almost at the double-doors leading outside when he finally caught her. "Wait!" He said and grabbed her arm and tried to turn her. She resisted, but she was weak. "At least tell me your name." He said.

She remained still and silent for a moment, then turned towards him with tears in her haunted eyes.

"Please." She said softly, but with a deep agony that rang in her voice. "Please just leave me alone."

The line appeared again, but different this time. The end that was connected to her was not glowing and warm, but rather dark and cold, like a black hole. Little blobs of darkness broke away and disappeared. It began to travel up the length, towards where his end glowed faintly.

She retracted her arm from his grip slowly. The line disappeared. "Wait-…" He said, but she was already out the door and running away quickly through the freezing rain that poured down unmercifully.

He stared after her retreating form until he could not see her anymore, then he bent over with his hands on his knees and breathed in and out heavily. _I really need to quit smoking…_

--

A/N: That's kind of a crappy way to end it, I know, but I just _really wanted to end it _TTATT  
I had originally wanted to end it where Lea runs away the first time, but then I was like 'Nooo…that would be a very crappy ending, and I still have more I need to write…'_  
_Anyway. Axel's last name is Lyulf. It's weird, but it has a meaning that I'm /hoping/ is the correct one. You guys might learn about it in one of the up-coming chapters, if I can squeeze it in somewhere. Along with Lea's last name.  
Please! For the love of Pancakes! PLEASE REVIEW!! Not reviewing makes me feel like I failed TT-TT I can't learn from my mistakes if you guys won't tell me what they are.

Thanks again to TheSilentArtist for reviewing!! X3


	4. Skin Deep

So there's kindof some 'bad language' in this chapter. Just thought I'd warn you before you read it.  
Also, I've edited this chapter a bit, you know, just adding and subtracting stuff, so if you get an update from old chapters, that's why. I'm editing stuff.

--

The rain plundering down on the small city of Twilight Town seemed never-ending as it continued to fall without any sign of stopping. The drops were small, yes, but there were many, and even though earlier that day it had been a beautiful fall afternoon, the clouds had brought with them a torrent of wind and freezing air that pulled and tugged on the naked trees, whipping the leaves into the air along with anything light enough to be swept away. Windows rattled and shook; doors creaked; houses shuddered under the cold embrace. The rain beat against the roofs of the houses and stores, collecting in the growing puddles on the brick roads and running down the many stairways and hills in little streams. Lightening lashed across the darkening sky, exploding with sound and light. The almost-black clouds circulated overhead, churning and feeding the fears of the townspeople below who took refuge inside their small homes and relied upon a small sliver of hope that the storm would pass soon. Some, though, were unlucky enough to be caught in the grasp of the gale as they hurried desperately home.

A thin form stumbled up the small alley that led to her door, the freezing rain had soaked her down until her clothes were practically apart of her skin, and had plastered her hair to her head. Small puffs of condensation escaped from her gasping mouth, her teeth knocking together as her muscles convulsed in order to keep herself warm. It was a feeble attempt. A strong gust of wind almost threw her to the ground as she staggered blindly forward, the frozen needles pelting down on her stung her eyes and ripped right through her to her core. She fumbled with numb hands at the door knob until the latch gave, and the door flew from her hold as another gust blasted up the alleyway behind her.

Her ghostly-white skin rejoiced in the warmth that was given off by the house's large heart- a heart that accepted her day after day into its hold, allowing her a fleeting moment of security before the day would come crashing down, and the monster would awaken. No such warmth could cure her of the poison that burned in her chest on this dangerous night, however.

The shivering girl shoved the door closed, leaning against it with all her might as the wind tried to gain entry into her home. It shut with a small click, and then she slid the bolt home and stepped away. With wide eyes she stared at the rattling door until the wind gave up and all was quiet accept the pound of rain, the far-off echo of thunder, and her own heaving breathing.

The womanly voice crawled wearily to her from its owner, who resided with her soul-mate on the sagging couch situated in front of the murmuring TV in the room to the girl's right. She did not answer. They did not repeat themselves. She was just a ghost now; a shell of what she had formerly been. They had tried to understand what went wrong, because at one time something _had_ gone horribly wrong, but she had pushed them away. And after some time they had all but given up on their only daughter. It haunted her so.

She turned and drifted upstairs, leaving small damp spots in the carpet from her dripping body, clutching herself around her middle in a vain attempt to cease her shivering. Down the dark hallway she floated, keeping her watering eyes trained on the floor and not on the many pictures that adorned the walls. The eyes of those subject to the photos followed her, burning into her rigid back and making different sorts of chills sweep over her. She quickly closed and locked the bathroom door, shutting out all the faces, the smiles, and the accusing eyes. She could still feel them through the wood.

The monster stirred, but did not rise. The shock from the cold had tired it out, and washed away its power. She breathed in a shaky breath, and then let it out. She could _breathe _again, though only until the darkness within her constricted her lungs again. It seemed to have infinite power.

Lightening crackled outside and made the house shudder and the lights blink on and off. The girl jumped at the horrendous BOOM that followed, and then quickly turned on the shower to try and drown out the hurricane happening outside. No such luck. She stripped down to her pale form, leaving the sopping wet clothes in a puddle on the cold tile floor, and jumped into the boiling stream. She cried out, the intense heat burned at her fragile skin, but she welcomed the pain.

"_It'll only hurt the first time." _She shuddered at the memory. Things only hurt at first. But after a while, everything becomes numb. _Everything._

Gritting her teeth and clenching her eyes shut, she slowly moved forward into the hot spray. Her paper skin began to turn pink, then red as the fiery water bit at her naked flesh. A numbing sensation began to spread over her body as her skin adjusted to the heat. She only turned the knob more, and was rewarded with more scalding water. She then, like every other time that she had deemed it time to bathe, took hold in her hand a scrubber that had little bristles protruding from one side.

She could see them again. The bruises. The cuts. Every mark _he _had made on her that had long since faded away, but never healed. No one else could see them, but she could. And she could still _feel _them. She could still feel his hard skin against her more fragile body. Still hear his ragged breath in her ear. The scarring memories raced back into her troubled mind from their shadowy depths. Tears pooled, but were lost in the cascading water from above. Noises of sorrow escaped from her throat in gasps, but were drowned out by the pounding water roaring in her ears, and the raging storm outside.

Her grasp on the brush tightened. Her teeth clenched in anger. Anger at herself, for being so _weak._ Anger at _him _for….for making her the way she was now. The hate in her veins drove her into a frenzy. With the brush at hand and fire in her eyes, she began to scrub desperately at her skin, not stopping even when blood began to flow as the bristles broke through. The red venom swirled pink at her feet before being swallowed hungrily by the mouth of the drain. She relished in the pain.

The monster began to stir as she sat beneath the waterfall of serenity. She hugged her knees closer to her in a feeble attempt to smother the ache blooming there. She knew the numbness wouldn't last long.

It never did.

That night as she lay in her bed, her eyes screwed shut and her hands covering her ears to block out the terrible war nature was having against itself, she could feel something pulling at her. As she finally began to drift away into the black ocean of her unconsciousness, a voice called out to her. Its whispered words echoed across the raging sea that was her mind, and calmed it. The darkness within her sheathed its poisonous claws, if only for a moment, and stilled.

_Leeaaa…._ The echoes said. The voice was soothing, yet eerie.

Like a haunted lullaby.

o.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.o

_.:Earlier:. _

A particular tall red-headed teen cursed loudly as he tried to jam his key into the lock of his apartment door, which was proving difficult because, even though there was a roof overhead, the erratic winds blew the rain under the roof and onto the second-floor balcony, where an already-soaked and very pissed off Axel stood.

"Stupid…fucking…GOD DAMMIT!" Losing all patience with the tiny mechanism, Axel took a step back and then kicked the door with all his might, fracturing the frame and sending little splinters every which way. The offending hunk of wood slammed open, and Axel shoved past it, glaring at it with enough heat that the door would have probably exploded into flames had it not been covered in water.

"What the hell, Axel?!" Yelled a startled mohawk/mullet-headed blond, who sat cross-legged on a very worn-down couch with a guitar resting in his grasp. Axel merely slammed the door (or attempted to, since the frame was completely obliterated), ignoring the blue-eyed boy altogether, and dropped (rather forcefully threw) his keys and dripping backpack onto a small table to his right as he passed it. He then stomped over to the kitchen area and the blond boy stood up to follow him.

"Axel, you know that crazy pirate landlord we have is gonna make us pay for that, right?" He said, with his hands placed on his bony hips. Axel just grunted and reached deep within the belly of the fridge to extract a Coke. He stood up and looked back at the wide-eyed teen with a stoic face, though his eyes still held the intense I'm-going-to-incinerate-everything- look in them.

"Do you want one?" He said gruffly, pointing at the drink in his hand. The blond swiped the Coke from him, but made no move to open it.

"We're already running low on cash, as it is! We don't need you breaking down doors and wreaking havoc, Axel!" The redhead rolled his eyes and bent to retrieve another soda. He stood up to face a now confused-looking boy.

"How come you're all wet?"

Axel looked upward and groaned an 'oh-god-why?-why-me?' before looking down again.

"Because, Demyx," He started, his voice oozing sarcasm, "I got attacked by a giant water monster." He opened his Coke and took a swig as Demyx's eyes got very wide.

"Ommigod, seriously?"

"Yeah. It just sprang up out of the ground." The blond paled slightly. Axel rolled his eyes again. "No, you retard. It's fucking pouring rain outside. And I had to run through the fucking hurricane all the way across the entire fucking city."

Demyx brightened considerably at that. "It's raining outside?" _He probably wants to go dance in it again…_

"No, it's storming. I had to walk through it, Demyx." _The amount of lightening would make him crap in his pants if he tried to go out there…_

A wide grin spread across his face. "Oh, _yeah_!" He said with a smirk. "You had your first day of school today, didn't you?" He laughed as Axel glared at him. "So how did it go?" Demyx leaned back on the counter, placing his still-unopened Coke behind him.

Memories of the day's many events flickered behind Axel's eyes. His brows knitted together. There had been no more sightings of the strange glowing line-thing, but the ache in his chest had definitely become more pronounced within the last two hours. Instead of telling Demyx everything, Axel opted to lie. He needed to figure everything out before he told anyone, and he definitely did _not _need Demyx telling everyone back home that he was hallucinating things.

"The same that school has always been. Shitty. I still don't understand why _you_ don't have to go." He said grumpily, taking another drink and walked back into the main room. If Demyx had seen the strange look in Axel's eyes, he didn't comment on it. He just bounced happily behind him, his bubbly voice loud and way too cheerful in Axel's point of view.

"Heehee, I already gots my edumication!" he said joyfully, smiling like the naïve fool he was.

"I can tell." Axel mumbled into his drink and moved to sit down on the couch.

"NOOOooo!!" Demyx yelled and dramatically threw himself onto the couch so that his whole body covered the sorry little piece-of-crap furniture.

"Demyx," Axel sighed. "I'm seriously not in the mood to deal with your schizophrenic shit. Get out of the way."

"No! You'll get the couch all wet!"

_Jesus Christ…_

Axel sighed again. "All righty then. I'll just sit on you." Before Demyx could object or defend himself, Axel, in all his sopping wetness, sat down squarely on the blond's back, and then smothered Demyx's face in the mismatched pillows by using the back of his head as an armrest. Axel smiled to himself as he flipped through the channels on the TV, ignoring the muffled wails telling him to get off, and only digging his elbow harder into Demyx's head when he tried to lift himself up. After about a minute, Demyx's struggles grew lax, and Axel began to worry if he'd suffocated him. He twisted his fingers in Demyx's hair and forcefully lifted his head up, which earned him a loud dramatic gasp of breath and then a long trail of curses.

"You done yet?" He asked the blond after he had paused to regain some breath.

"Get _off _Axel! You're getting my back all wet!" He whined and tried to push his upper body up with his arms, though Axel's weight prohibited him from getting too far.

Said redhead just snickered. "What? I thought you liked water." After attempting to glare at Axel, Demyx, somehow, was able to turn himself so that, instead of sitting on his back, Axel was sitting on his chest. He then, with his surprising upper-body strength that he had not possessed before, grabbed hold of Axel's butt, which earned him a loud "WOAH!" from said teen, and successfully pushed the redhead off of him.

"I _do _like water. But you're _cold_!" He whined and then booted Axel away. "Go take a shower or something!"

Chuckling, Axel went into the kitchen and threw his empty Coke can away, and then walked to his room, passing a grumbling Demyx along the way.

"….I don't even know why I came with him….YOU LEFT A HUGE, WET BUTT-MARK ON THE BACK OF MY ABERCROMBIE SHIRT, AXEL! THANKS A LOT!" He yelled at Axel's retreating back.

"You're welcome." Axel called over his shoulder and then narrowly missed being hit by an over-stuffed vomit-colored pillow. He was still laughing as he entered the bathroom.

Axel's apartment, though almost ready to fall in on itself, was kind of nice. There was a kitchen with working faucets and electricity, a main room that served as a hangout/ living room, and then two bedrooms that were connected by one bathroom. It was small, but what could be expected of two teenage boys, one 17, the other 18?

Back in Destiny Islands Demyx had made money playing his guitar at little café shops and occasionally really small concerts, but other than that his income was small. Even though finding similar jobs in Twilight Town was hard, he was able to convince a café owner to let him play a few nights a week. Axel was still trying to find work. _And frankly, I don't think anyone would hire me…_

Axel had pulled off his shirt and dropped the soaked garment in the sink when a loud BANG sounded, followed by a very girly scream. He poked his head around the corner in time to be hit by a very cold burst of air. The door had been blown open by a strong gust of wind, and Demyx sat hugging his guitar to his chest like it was going to save his life. Axel rolled his eyes and walked back into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

_I live with a freaking pansy…._

……..

BZZZ BZZZ BZZZ BZZ-

The insistent assault of one very annoying alarm clock on Axel's ears was halted as his fist shot out from underneath the mountain of covers to hit the offending device, catapulting it across the room to smash against the wall. The redhead groaned and buried his head under his pillow to block out the light. His mind instantly went back to trying to go back to the dream he had been having, but he found that he could no longer remember it. _Damn._ He always seemed to forget his dreams. No matter how hard he tried to remember, they always seem to become more tangled in the complex web that was his mind. When he ever did recall something, just as suddenly as it would pop up, it would disappear.

Like those Whack-A-Mole games. He'd always hated those things.

Something tightened it's hold around his waist. He stiffened. _What the hell…?_

He pulled back the covers to reveal a half-naked, guitar-playing, Mohawk/mullet-headed teen attached firmly around his middle. Said teen was still fast asleep; the heavy amount of blankets must have muffled the trill of the alarm clock. The sudden assault of cold air caused the faintly smiling teen to frown and snake his arms around Axel and press his body closer, mumbling something incoherent. Axel's complete surprise and horror was then reflected in the scream that erupted from his throat.

"DEMYX WHAT THE HELL?! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING IN MY BED?!"

The next five minutes were filled with screaming, whining, and much threatening on Axel's part.

"But it was _really really cold_ last night, Axel!" Demyx whined, nursing his bruised head as he sat on the floor where he had landed after Axel had shoved him off his bed. Axel glared at the blond teen and then resumed to pull on his shirt, diving down beneath the piles of clothes that lay strewn about and looked for a jacket.

"That doesn't give you the right to go off and sleep in someone else's bed." He growled. Demyx just pouted sleepily.

Still seething quietly, Axel made his way over to the splintered door, roughly shouldered his still-damp backpack and then shoved his keys into the pocket of his dark baggy pants. He kicked the chair that had been propped up against the door out of the way, but he hesitated as he gripped the doorknob tightly in his hand. Demyx wandered sheepishly into the room, sporting a pair of pants and scratching at the back of his head. Axel didn't wait for an apology. He pulled open the door and left, murmuring "I'll see you after school," over his shoulder before the door closed behind him.

Demyx stared at the spot where his friend used to be, then sighed sadly. _I guess I went too far this time…_

Outside it was like a totally different world than the bright-and-sunny day of earlier yesterday. The sun did not come out from behind the heavy curtain of clouds that blanketed the sky, and thus was unable to share its warmth with the earth. Dripping rain left over from last night's storm resounded all around, giving the illusion that the downpour had not stopped. Even though puddles polka-dotted the streets, frost glittered all over where Winter's cold kiss had touched, and a thin fog stalked slowly among the houses and shops. No birds chirped, for they had all burrowed into their nests. The winds from the midnight storm had subsided fractionally, and the heavy breeze slammed into the lone teen's back with frozen air, and he hunched his shoulders and thrust his hands deeper into his pockets to warm them. His steady breaths painted the air white and his steps sent a soft echo down the thin street, but it died quickly as he stepped out onto a much larger cobblestone river that, strangely, did not hold the rushing wave of cars that it normally exercised. The redheaded teen looked down the long expanse of road both ways, but his emerald eyes did not spot a single car coming either direction.

_Creepy…_He thought and shivered. _It's almost like a ghost town…_And then the haunting thought of being stuck in an empty city, alone, with _Demyx_ sent shudders down his lean body. _I'd rather kill myself with a spork than go through that kind of torture…_

He turned right and continued leisurely down the sidewalk, trying to shake the bad thoughts of horrible singing and unending whining out of his head, but nevertheless glancing down alleyways and side-streets for any living soul out-and-about. His chest tightened in anxiety and another unknown-yet familiar emotion. He looked down and expected the glowing line-thing to shimmer to life, but all remained dark and normal. He almost felt disappointed. His chest had stung in the same fashion last night as it had when he had lived in Destiny Islands; it was that same distraught desperation that had nearly driven him mad with the raw emotion of it. He'd been kept awake almost the whole night by it-- it and a soft voice silently pleading and calling out to him. Not to mention the terrible shrieks of thunder that shook the earth with its ferocity, sending items stuck on shelves crashing to the floor. He could deal with it, though. He'd had his share of sleepless nights in Destiny Islands. What would make moving here to Twilight Town any different?

The fog soup that had been ladled over the small city grew strangely thick-- so thick, in fact, that it was difficult to make out anything that was just a hundred feet away. If the lockness monster itself had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and mugged a hobo, Axel would not have been able to see it, no matter how much he might have wanted to. He smiled at the thought. _Or beating up some orphan kid or something. _He laughed. _Ha-ha, that'd be hilarious. _

But even though the thought of a legendary sea monster mugging someone brought an evil smile to Axel's face, the many daunting recent events plagued his mind and dissipated the joyful emotion playing there.

He frowned. The weird depressed girl occupied most of his thoughts. He continued to ask himself the same questions over and over, questions that he didn't, and couldn't find the answer to. The obvious one was 'Who was she?' He didn't know. _She seems so familiar…_He thought. _I know her somehow…but how? I've never met the girl before yesterday. At least…I think I haven't met her…_ Axel racked his jumbled brain, searching through faces of girls he had met in his lifetime, which was a lot. His search came up short a minute later. Most of the young teenage girls Axel had encountered had been, well, quite promiscuous. The red-haired girl from yesterday had been too innocent to fit in that group. Innocent, but in a sophisticated way. Like she knew how to handle herself but was still unaccustomed to the horrors of life.

Her haunted green eyes and her pale face appeared in Axel's memory. His brows drew together and his eyes narrowed slightly. _At least not used to _most_ of the crap life gives us…_ Whatever had happened to her, it had made a big impression. She looked like she hadn't eaten anything in days; the long-sleeved shirt and tattered baggy jeans she had worn had been barely clinging to her thin frame. Axel wondered briefly if she was anorexic. _But she had that fight with that brunette chick. _She _didn't look the 'emo' type. In fact, she's just like the other preppy girls in school. I wonder how they were friends…_

"…_why are you acting like this?! We used to be best friends and now you're all…all…__emo. __I mean, you could at least __look __at me!"_ The argument that he and pretty much everyone else in the school had witnessed played back in his mind_….hmm…so she _used _to be preppy. Wonder what happened…_

Scenarios of which depicted the transformation of a sweet, giggling preppy girl into a cold, depressed zombie jumped across his imaginings until he was distracted momentarily by a shop window that had several TV's stacked on top of each other, all playing the same News channel. Axel hadn't noticed he had wondered upon the Electronic Store, mostly because the fog was still thick as jellied brains, and because he had been so deep in thought (which was unusual unto itself) that he hadn't realized how far he had walked; he was just a few blocks from school.

He couldn't hear what the newscast was saying, but he could read the warning marquee scrolling lazily along the bottom.

'…_fog should evaporate by noon. Until then avoid going on the roads and keep to a maximum of 5 miles per hour if you do drive. Schools are not closed…' _

"Damn. Thought I could catch a lucky break. Guess not." Axel mumbled, and continued walking again. _Explains why no one's out on the road right now. Even I wouldn't want to drive in this shit. _He thought and hunched his shoulders against the onslaught of cold air attacking from behind him. His still slightly-wet backpack had made a huge damp spot on his back where it rested.

"Karma has a bitchy way of catching up to me…" he grumbled and shivered as the icy air froze the wet spot on his back. And then he stepped off the curb and into an ankle-deep puddle.

It took him a moment to realize what he had stepped into, and when he did, he all but blew up in rage.

"Oh, you have GOT to be SHITTING ME!" He yelled angrily to the sky and then quickly waded across the street to the other sidewalk, splashing arctic water as he went. "I swear to FUCKING GOD! I HATE THIS STUPID TOWN! FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK!" His somewhat-vulgar and continuous curses would have made a sailor cringe, but spewing out obscenities did not lessen his angered mood, and neither did his now-freezing body. He managed to shake off most of the water, but the insides of his converses were still filled withit – he could feel the liquid squish around every time he took a step.

Today was just not his day.

"Okay," He mumbled hotly, "now that I've established that God truly hates me, let the day commence." He turned his face towards the cloudy sky with a face that read I-will-have-VENGEANCE! He was still contemplating different tactics to get back at the Big Man Upstairs when out of the fog loomed Twilight High.

Axel glared up at the silent building as he approached the front doors, his five-alarm mood no better as schoolwork, bossy teachers, and crappy cafeteria food invaded his thoughts. A few students pushed past him, and it was then that he noticed the flurry of activity through the windows.

The bell had already rung. He'd made it just in time. _Wow. First time I've ever been to school when I actually got here on time. _He thought sarcastically and then followed the hurrying teens inside.

…..

Axel could remember with surprising clarity the exact location of Zombie-girl's locker, mostly because it was the only one in the D-hall with a dent in it, and secondly because it was just ten lockers away from his.

He shoved rudely through the throng of students who had stopped in the middle of the hallway to chat or text, and they called out angrily with threats and foul language. Axel shrugged off the names; he'd been called worse, but replied to the group with a heated glare and a "Fuck you", and then continued on his angered way. They stared at his receding back in mild shock, and a few cowered in his wake.

Upon arriving to, and wrenching open his locker, which had scared his locker-neighbors, and shoving his school crap into his cold backpack, a familiar pain tightened in his chest. He scowled down at the front of his jacket. The pain crescendo-ed, and he slammed his locker shut with enough force that the surrounding metal shook. The ache was a lot more than it had been, if fact it was the worse he'd felt so far. For some reason, he was convinced that he _really _needed to talk to her. Something in the back of his mind was nagging at him, and had been nagging at him since he'd first seen her. It'd taken till this morning for him to figure out what he'd needed to do. _There is no way I'm letting her get away from me again. _He set a determined face and then looked around the emptying hallway for the apparent cause for his hurting, and his worsening mood.

It wasn't until almost everyone in the hallway had scurried off to their first class that he spotted her. She sauntered down the hall slowly, holding herself around her middle and never looking up from the floor. Axel hid himself behind a corner twenty feet from her locker, and watched as she walked towards her locker.

_Christ…_He thought when she was close enough to see fully. _She's worse off than she was yesterday…_

Deep shadows hung underneath her eyes that seemed much darker than the day before. Her skin was still pale, but it had a sickly look about it, and the way she could barely keep herself upright made Axel feel guilty about ever thinking his day had started out crappy.

She looked like shit.

The girl, finally at her locker, looked at the dent and shuddered, but the action seemed too much for her worn body and she had to use the cold metal as support or risk collapsing to the ground. She breathed heavily for a moment after sustaining her balance, and then shakily opened her locker to find, yet again, it void of any school materials or books.

After inspecting the empty cavity for a while, she suddenly became rigid, the one hand holding onto the locker door tightened while the other hung lax at her side. Very slowly her head turned to look at the wall currently hiding the tall redhead, and she studied it with glazed eyes for a minute before shutting her locker and turning to walk back down the hallway towards her class.

Axel, with his back pressed against the wall and his heart thudding painfully in his aching chest, stared, shocked, with wide eyes. He hadn't meant to hide like he had-- and he suddenly grew angry at himself for being so cowardly-- but he had sensed something _very_ wrong with her. She gave of waves of….of _something_ that had sent whatever was giving him pain into overdrive, and he'd nearly blacked out when it'd hit.

There'd also been something else wrong with her. Something in her appearance. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he knew he'd seen something...off.

BRRIIIINNNGG

o.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.o

The circle of dancing flames that surrounded two figures began to die out as one of the figures hunched over in defeat. His power was drained, but he felt he had taken more than physical blows. Feelings that he wasn't supposed to have swirled around in a whirlpool of pain in the place where his heart used to be, and he swayed before finding his footing again. Dejected emerald eyes met unreadable crystal blue ones, and another jolt of pain wracked his body. The other figure stood silently on the other side of the room; two strange but powerful weapons were held in his hands, but disappeared in a flash of sparkling light when he concluded his enemy was defeated. The fallen one said something, and the other replied. The words made a spark of hope in him that was quickly extinguished as reality dawned on him. The darkness seeped up out of the ground around him as he summoned the last of his strength to open a portal. He looked back up with sadness in his eyes at the boy across from him.

"_Silly. Just because you have a next life-"_

"LEA!"

The sleeping girl jolted awake and bolted upright, her eyes wide with alarm. The fire disappeared, and so, too, did the beautiful blue eyes. She'd seen them before somewhere, but where? Her blurry eyes slowly came back into focus; she blinked a few times at the cold, cruel light that flared around her. She reached for blankets, but only found hard wood. She rubbed the side of her face. Why did it hurt so much? She blinked rapidly, trying to see beyond the bright light, and searched the scene faintly coming to life. Numbers and symbols surrounded her; clogged her vision, and she began to feel faintly sick. She looked around her, but could not recognize her current position. _How…? How did I get here…? _Panic bloomed, mixing and fusing with the now too-familiar ache in her chest. The shadows coming to form around her snickered and sneered, and she cowered under their cold gazes. She clenched at her cramping midsection and gasped for air. There was none. Why was there no oxygen?

"Where am I?" Her voice cracked and hysterics leaked through her throat. She looked around wildly, shoveling through her brain for any memory of anything from that morning. Nothing. Just the black ocean she had slept in.

The snickers died down and in its place confusion reigned. It swept across the room to the teacher, who stood and made her way quickly to the gasping girl. Her concern was voiced, and then repeated when no answer came. She reached for Lea, but Lea flinched back violently, falling out of her seat and then quickly stumbling to a stand.

"D-don't touch me! Who are you?! Where am I?!" Her voice rose in pitch as the panic and disorientation filled her mind and fueled the darkness tearing at her heart. _It's just a bad dream….it's just a bad dream…it's just…a…_

"Honey, you're in Math class, remember? You were in here yesterday." The words were spoken slowly, as if to a small child, and they floated towards her softly as if they were afraid to break her. Confusion still twisted Lea's face. "Remember?" Her teacher prompted.

Lea blinked the bright haze away, and looked around. She couldn't recognize who the shadow students were, but can you differentiate one ant from another? But the room began to slowly jog her jumbled memory.

Yesterday. Third period. Algebra. It was all coming back. She blinked again and looked down. Blood seeped up her neck and embarrassment and appall colored her ears red so that they all but disappeared into her hair. "Oh." She said. Her body slowly slid from its tense position as she walked back to her desk, nervously looking around for any reason to just bolt from the room and to the safety of the bathroom. No one made any move on her as she settled uncomfortably in her seat, and she kept her eyes down from her staring peers and closely inspecting teacher.

There was a pause that was a hundred years to Lea, and she yearned for her life to end. This was going to leak all throughout the current, drifting and twisting into tight knots that will be impossible to untangle. She'd stuck her neck out far, and now the dull blade was crashing down on her.

The teacher gave her one last speculating look before hesitantly turning back to draw more symbols on the wall. The shadows followed suit, but continued to glance over with their cold eyes and freeze the trembling girl with their intensity.

She stared, eyes wide but not seeing, down at the wood in front of her.

_What the heck just happened?_

o.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.o

English class. A class that could either be really fun, or a complete pain in the ass. And just like History class, it all depends on the teacher and the other students. The teacher could be the old, give-book-reports-every-friggin-week kind of person, who says big words like 'plethora' and 'antidisestablishmentarism' and then expects you to know its meaning, the synonyms and antonyms and things that rhyme with it. One who wears big, ugly glasses and has a too-high skirt or pair of pants on, graying hair, and is hopelessly single. Late work has no exception, and "Go to detention" is their favorite phrase to say.

Fortunately for Axel, his English teacher was neither boring nor unjust. His voice was not a nasally squawk; his eyes were not steely-grey and did not need glasses to aid their sight. His hair was not graying—in fact he had his chocolate-hair elegantly disheveled as if he had just woken up and gone immediately to his job--the color and sticking-outness reminding Axel of a particular blue-eyed teen back in Destiny Islands. His tie was loose, and off to one side slightly; his white cotton shirt was wrinkled and not tucked in, and the top two buttons were undone. And on the left leg of his navy-blue pants were about ten 'Hello my Name is' stickers, and all had different names written messily on them with a black pen. Names like 'Fabio', 'Your Mom', and 'Inigo Montoya. You killed my Father. Prepare to die'. He wore no shoes- they lay discarded beside his chair. He himself sat cross-legged on top of his very organized desk, reading a book.

As Axel walked in, glad to be on time for at least his third period, he couldn't help but stare slightly at the man sitting nonchalantly on his desk. He was startled for a moment, and then he recovered quickly and continued on to his desk in the far corner. Yesterday there had been no teacher, so the Vice Principal had to come and watch over the class. Everyone had made noises of disappointment and groaned unhappily; apparently this teacher was very well known, and liked _a lot._ And the Vice Principal…was not. Even though all the other teachers' didn't approve of this strange teacher's method of teaching, all the students liked it, and no one hardly ever failed his class, so the Administrators let him stay.

Axel sat down low in his seat and eyed the man. He showed no signs of coming out of whatever world the book had sucked him into, even after the bell had rung. The other students chattered and gossiped, and a few late-comers strolled in seemingly unaffected and indifferent to the fact they were three minutes late. Still, the teacher read on, flipping the pages and resting his chin on his hand. After about five minutes of mindless chatter, one Hollister clone spoke up.

"Hey, what book are you reading?" He laughed to his friends like he'd dissed someone bad. The teacher glanced up, then sighed and closed his book, setting it beside him on the desk.

"_Brokeback Mountain_." He said, and the group of jocks quieted, as did the whole class.

"What, you gay or something?" The clone said after a moment, and his friends laughed with him. The class looked at the teacher with interest, curious to how he would reply to such an accusation.

Axel stiffened. He'd had a couple of gay friends back in Destiny Islands and they'd gotten crap from people every day. Really bad crap. Like, get beat by a crow-bar bad.

One of them would hopefully get out of the hospital soon.

The teacher, though, didn't even bat an eyelash. He smiled unnervingly, and replied casually, "Maybe. You interested?"

The smug smile on the Jock-clone's face was replaced with a colorful mix of disgust, embarrassment, and complete surprise. His friends all crowed and nudged and hit him, jesting at his sexual preferences. He told them to shut up and then turned away.

Axel relaxed back in his seat, amusement written on his face. But it wasn't entirely clear whether or not the strange teacher was serious or not. That unnerved yet interested the red-head. At least there was _one _person in this town that wasn't completely normal and _boring _like everyone else.

The teacher, now out of his book funk, brought his hands together loudly and the class quieted immediately.

"Okay. So, welcome to sophomore English. If you're not a sophomore, then you're either a fish in the wrong class, or you're too stupid to know your own language and you had to take it again." He looked directly at the Jock-clone, and the student scowled. He continued. "Sorry I wasn't here yesterday. I went to a strip club the other night and got crazy-drunk, and woke up beside a dumpster without a clue to where I was." The class laughed, but, yet again, it was impossible to tell if he was being serious or not. "Since I see a few new faces I guess I'll go over all the rules." Everyone looked around and searched for any 'new faces' that might have popped up. Axel found himself doing the same, though he didn't know anyone anyway. He suddenly had the feeling that he was the only 'new face' in the class. He was right. A few eyes looked his way, but everyone else avoided him entirely after noticing him.

"Allright. No drinking alcohol, I don't mind any other drink, just be aware that I might steal it if it's something I like. No smoking." A few girls 'awww'ed with fake disappointment, and the teacher looked at them with mock sympathy. "I know, it's _so hard _to resist smoking in class, but I'm sure you'll make it till the break." They laughed and he continued. "And definitely no sexual interaction between anyone. And I do mean _everyone._" He looked around the classroom with a serious face. "If I can't get any at school, then neither can you." Everyone laughed, including Axel. The young teacher slid off his desk, but continued to lean back on it. "Being tardy isn't really any issue, though coming to class would be advised. To hell with 'Bell to Bell Learning'." He paused to wait for the cheering class to quiet again. "As you all can probably see, I've got a bunch of name tags on my leg. I bet you guys are thinkin' 'why the hell does he have so many name tags?'. Well, I figured that since we are all going to get to know each other pretty well over the next few months that I'd doff my boring, formal name, and give you guys a choice to what you want to call me. Everyday the names on my leg, or arm, or sometimes back if I can dislocate my arms to reach that far, will be different, but you can still call me whatever you like." Everyone murmured excitedly to each other, and Axel pondered thoughtfully for a moment. "Just remember kiddies: you can call me 'Asshole', but don't whine and bitch when I start acting like one."

After a moment of laughter and chattering, the door suddenly opened and a boy walked in. Thirteen pairs of eyes were drawn to the sudden disturbance, but the teen was soon ignored with the same cold shoulder that Axel had been given, though the redhead continued to study the new-comer. The thin boy had bluish hair, cut short in the back, but long bangs obscured the left side of his face. He wore regular ol' slightly-baggy jeans, a plain grey jacket, and a tan messenger bag with assorted buttons and badges clipped and glued on the front, and the bag itself looked a little worse for wear. His height made it so that he could almost be classified as 'short', but most teenage guys were still growing in their sophomore year, Axel thought.

When _Fabio_, as Axel decided to call him, noticed the slate-haired boy walking in fifteen minutes late, he only smiled. The boy silently walked in and sat in the same row as Axel, but in the front seat, placing his bag just as noiselessly on the floor. "You're just in time- we were just about to play the Name Game."

Most of the class, after hearing this, 'YAAY'ed, while some 'oh, no'ed, though deep down they knew they wanted to play it.

"Allright, everybody up, and move all the desks to the side, and get in a circle." He yelled.

After two minutes of ear-shattering scraping noises from all the desks being shoved towards the walls, all fourteen students formed a circle, or at least tried to, in the middle of the open space. Fabio started out by saying that he had no name, and he grew up here, in Twilight Town. He encouraged everyone to say something other than where they grew up, but they said it anyway. When Axel's turn came, he couldn't help but notice how everyone, except for Fabio, avoided his gaze. The blue haired boy had looked up with an unreadable face when Axel voiced that he was from Destiny Islands, and the class seemed to stiffen slightly upon hearing it. He couldn't blame them. After all, DI was well-known for being a place crawling with murderers and troublemakers alike. But they really had no idea.

When came the blue-haired boy's turn, Fabio had to tell him to repeat himself, only loud enough for us humans to hear. After sighing and scowling at the man, he did. His name was Zexion, he said. And he grew up in Destiny Islands._ Hm. Never saw that one coming…_ Everyone glanced at Axel, who was busy staring down Zexion, who seemed to be transfixed with something on the floor.

After a few final words from Fabio, the ring split up into groups who chatted away. Zexion walked up and murmured something to the teacher, who nodded, and then he picked up his messenger bag and, with a quickened step, went to the door, opened it, and left.

_What is it with people running away from me before I get a chance to talk to them? _Axel thought, staring at the door. Fabio caught his attention, though. The man had been looking at the same spot Axel had, but turned suddenly toward the redhead. The two looked at each other with unreadable faces, and then Fabio's blue eyes narrowed, and he pursed his lips.

"Yup." He said.

Axel was just about to ask the strange teacher just what the hell he meant, when he turned back to the class, ignoring Axel for the time-being.

"HEY WHO WANTS TO PRANK CALL PEOPLE!" He yelled, and the class answered back enthusiastically.

_I think I'm going to like this class…_

--  
FINALLY! I'm sorry I ended it like that, but if you couldn't notice, I kind of hurried at the end because I really wanted to get this out.  
So how was it? PLEASE REVIEW!! You could just say 'Hi' for all I care.  
thanks for TheSilentArtist for reviewing last chapter X) You keep me goin' AS SHOULD EVERYONE ELSE IF YOU'D ONLY REVIEW!!  
till next time--


	5. From Hell to Here and Back Again: Part 1

Okay, I've been writing this long-ass chapter for almost a month and I'm really happy that I've finally almost finished the damn thing. I hope you guys like it, too.  
Btw, sorry if you get confused. There's a portion of this chapter that's set in the past, and I'm not sure if I wrote it correctly. So I apologize in advance if your brain gets muddled up.  
Also, this is the first part of it. There's two parts because I felt that if I'd written it all it would have been a really long and almost-boring chapter.  
SO, first part first, and then when I finish it, the second part.  
Enjoy.

--

From Hell to Here and Back Again: Part 1

:Flashback:

…..How…? How did I get here…?_ Panic bloomed, mixing and fusing with the now too-familiar ache in her chest. The shadows coming to form around her snickered and sneered, and she cowered under their cold gazes. She clenched at her cramping midsection and gasped for air. There was none. Why was there no oxygen? _

"_Where am I?" Her voice cracked and hysterics leaked through her throat. She looked around wildly, shoveling through her brain for any memory of anything from that morning. Nothing. Just the black ocean she had slept in. _

_The snickers died down and in its place confusion reigned. It swept across the room to the teacher, who stood and made her way quickly to the gasping girl. Her concern was voiced, and then repeated when no answer came. She reached for Lea, but Lea flinched back violently, falling out of her seat and then quickly stumbling to a stand. _

"_D-don't touch me! Who are you?! Where am I?!" Her voice rose in pitch as the panic and disorientation filled her mind and fueled the darkness tearing at her heart. It's just a bad dream….it's just a bad dream…it's just…a…_

"_Honey, you're in Math class, remember? You were in here yesterday." The words were spoken slowly, as if to a small child, and they floated towards her softly as if they were afraid to break her. Confusion still twisted Lea's face. "Remember?" Her teacher prompted. _

_Lea blinked the bright haze away, and looked around. She couldn't recognize who the shadow students were, but can you differentiate one ant from another? But the room began to slowly jog her jumbled memory. _

_Yesterday. Third period. Algebra. It was all coming back. She blinked again and looked down. Blood seeped up her neck and embarrassment and appall colored her ears red so that they all but disappeared into her hair. Her body slowly slid from its tense position as she walked back to her desk, nervously looking around for any reason to just bolt from the room and to the safety of the bathroom. No one made any move on her as she settled uncomfortably in her seat, and she kept her eyes down from her staring peers and closely inspecting teacher. _

_There was a pause that was a hundred years to Lea, and she yearned for her life to end. This was going to leak all throughout the current, drifting and twisting into tight knots that will be impossible to untangle. She'd stuck her neck out far, and now the dull blade was crashing down on her. _

_The teacher gave her one last speculating look before hesitantly turning back to draw more symbols on the wall. The shadows followed suit, but continued to glance over with their cold eyes and freeze the trembling girl with their intensity. _

_She stared, eyes wide but not seeing, down at the wood in front of her. _

What the heck just happened?

:End Flashback:

o.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.o

"Are you sure you don't want to talk to the counselor?"

Lea sighed again. This one-sided conversation had been going in circles for the last ten minutes. Her answers to the questions were simple; harmless. Yes, she was all right. No, she did not want to go to the nurse. No, she did not want to call home. And especially no, she did not want to talk to the counselor. During the interrogation she had kept her unfocused eyes trained at the windows, where the cold world looked back at her cruelly, so that the concern that was etched in the teacher's face wouldn't set off the watery bomb behind Lea's eyes. Lea couldn't, however, ignore the emotion that entwined itself in the teacher's words that so calmly wrapped themselves around her. Choking her. She hated pity, and adults showing it to her only made things worse. She always broke down when adults showed concern over her. Like now.

She clenched her jaw as another wave hit her. She shook her head to clear it. Not trusting her voice, she attempted to swallow the apple in her throat and compose herself before speaking.

"I'm fine." She managed to choke out.

In truth she was far from being 'fine'. She was completely memory-less from the time she fell into her black ocean the night before, to the time she had resurfaced twenty minutes ago. The dark void in her memory terrified her.

Strangely, though, the dark emotion that had usually been tearing at Lea's chest was just a small spark, compared to the roaring inferno that normally ravaged her heart. Everything was numb—numb but aching. She was dead-tired, but adrenaline was buzzing in her veins. The mixed feelings made her faintly sick.

The bell rang, saving her from more questions that would only end in her demise. The students, while casting her sideways glances, filed out of the room. Her whole body was numb now, as was her mind. She moved to gather her things, only to realize she had nothing.

"Are you sure you're all right, Lea?" The teacher asked as Lea stood from her seat. The redheaded girl looked at the woman with dead eyes, nodded, and then attempted to force a smile onto her face.

"I'm fine, Ms. Owens." Her faint smile did not assure the teacher.

After all, how can you convince someone something when you don't even believe it yourself?

…….

Lea hurried down the hallways in a strange sort of terrified daze. She didn't understand what was happening. How she had gotten from her house to school, through almost _half the day _and not having remembered any of it. And because of that episode back in the classroom, the teacher would most likely be watching Lea closely from now onward.

What _had _happened? She swallowed to clear her throat of the throbbing lump that made it so hard to breathe, but it remained stuck. She wiped furiously at her eyes. She would not show how scared she was, how utterly confused she was, to the shadow-people. They already had enough thorns to slice her with; she would not allow them another reason to think that she was worth attention. She _could not._

But it was becoming increasingly difficult to hide the strangeness that was occurring around, and in her. The monster was gone, for now, but in its absence she felt hollow, much more hollow than usual. Hollow and cold. The buzzing and blinking lights seemed especially bright--Lea had to squint as she stumbled along-- and the noises that used to be just whispers were amplified to point where she reached up to cover her ears to block out the screaming and shouting and loudness of everything. Her skin itched and tingled where cloth and skin brushed against her—she twitched involuntarily, and earned several blood-chilling sideways glances--and the stench of the school was so strong she could taste it. Everything was sharper, but in a weird way, as if her depth-perception was off, or she was wearing glasses that weren't quite right for her. She blinked and tried to clear her swirling head, but that only made everything even more out-of-place. A boy appeared to have lunged at her, and she jerked backwards only to bump into someone, sending their lunch bag and everything in it flying to the floor. The girl turned around and Lea flinched back from her heated gaze, clutching her ears tightly and staring fearfully with wide-eyes.

Bystanders turned to look at the small commotion, a few recognizing the twitching girl either from the fight-scene the day before, or from the disturbing episode just thirty minutes prior.

"Dude, is that her?"

"Yeah, man. She's totally wack. Just freaked out in the middle of class."

"I heard she started threatening the teacher with a knife."

_What? _

"Yeah, but then she turned it on herself. Started screaming about satin and all this weird goth-shit. I swear, man. She's fucking crazy."

"What's wrong with her?"

"She looks high."

"Dude, she IS high. Look at her twitchin' and crap. Total crack-head."

"Ommigod she is sooooo freaky!"

"Yeah, watch out Jennifer or she might bite you and turn you into a vampire or something."

"Lol, Ashley! Ewww!"

The shadow-people were forming another cage around her. She needed to escape before they turned into wolves. She had no strength to defend herself. They would devour her.

Her mind began playing disturbing tricks on her. The walls began to shift around her, the hallway becoming short, and then miles long, stretching and twisting until upside-down and right side-up had no meaning. The images dancing before her blurred. She blinked to clear her vision. Nothing happened.

"Whoa. Is she alright? She looks sick or somethin'."

"She's probably going through withdrawal."

"Yeah. Like, withdrawal from _blood_."

"Lol, good one, Jennifer!"

More spectators were caging her in. She felt like throwing up. She needed air. Air? Air! AIR!

"Ommigod, I think she's having an asthma attack!"

"Someone get a teacher or the nurse or something! This girl's, like, dying or something!"

Round and round and round everything span. Up, down, left, right—nothing made sense. The light faded away, leaving a darkness that Lea had never known before, and knew all too well. Voices from the void assaulted her, telling her things, egging her on. She tried to shut them out, but something inside of her wouldn't let her. She fought to hold onto reality, onto everything concrete and whole, but there was nothing in the real world that she wanted to go back to. There was nothing worth fighting this darkness for.

Suddenly a cool hand found Lea's wrist and gently tugged her in a direction. Which one? She did not know. The darkness had faded back to light, and everything was spinning out of control again. She didn't fight back against the hold. She let it carry her forward, trusting in it to take her to a safe place. A place without the deafening whispers that threaded into her body and mind and crushed everything she was. Which was almost nothing, at this point.

Nothing, yet everything.

Through the twisted reality she was taken, until the cold scent of a sterile environment and a blast of freezing-cold air met her. Those things alone began to numb her.

Suddenly she was on her knees. The sickness that had been building in her core tore up her body, and she threw up.

…..

_..You _will_ submit to the darkness in due time…because…Without me…you are nothing…without me…you are dead…stay away from him…he will only hurt you…hurt _us_…just like the other one did…_

…..

Five minutes later filled with dry-heaves that left Lea gasping for breath, the numbness that had completely taken over her senses (which had been a blessing) slowly began to wear off, and she began to notice something making soothing circles on her back. Opening her eyes slowly--which had been shut closed to try and keep everything from spinning-- she realized that she was staring into a toilet-bowl. The complete cleanliness of it and the faint scent of heavy cleaning fluids could only mean one thing. She looked up.

All around her on the pristine-white tiled walls were posters that depicted mostly of the human skeletal, muscular, and vein systems, a few about the consequences of smoking and drinking, and some smaller ones on how to treat deep cuts and what to do if someone is choking. They all pointed to one thing: Lea was in the bathroom in the nurse's office.

The object on her back stopped moving. She heard the whisper of shifting clothing to her left, and turned stiffly. She met startling-blue eyes, or, _eye_ since the other was hidden behind a curtain of grayish-blue hair, and a stoic-yet gentle face. This boy's body was close, but also somewhat-distant. He was a small person, probably the same height as her, and almost just as thin. But Lea trembled under his stilled hand. He was _touching _her. She needed to run, to push him away and escape, she needed—no. She _wanted_. As she thought the situation over, she could not conjure up any reason to run from this boy. She did not feel scared of him. In fact, she felt no ill-emotion toward him at all. Even though he was touching her. She had gotten so used to hiding away from any physical contact that it had gotten drilled so far into her conscious that it was the only reaction she knew to touch.

He leaned with his gaze angled toward Lea so that his bangs fell away and he could see her with both eyes.

"Are you feeling better?" He asked in a quiet voice. He didn't ask if she was okay, he asked if she was feeling _better. _He knew she wasn't okay. For a moment Lea wondered how much he _did _know about how un-okay she was. If he knew, if somehow he had found out…but looking into his knowledgeable yet unknowing eyes, she knew that he knew nothing beyond what everyone else did. That almost saddened her for some reason.

He used his left hand to take something out of his pocket. A Kleenex. He offered it to her. "To wipe your mouth." He said, glancing away as she hesitantly took the offered Kleenex and wiped it over her mouth.

Tears fell silently from Lea's green eyes as she looked from the vomit-spittle covered Kleenex and then away, turning her head away from him. This person next to her had seen her _throwing up._ She suddenly felt self-conscious (for the first time in months) and embarrassed. Horribly embarrassed. More tears followed at the thought of how weak she must look.

He took the emotion leaking from her eyes as tears of pain, and his brows drew together slightly in worry.

"I'll go get some medicine." He said and took his hand from her back to help support him as he moved to get up.

_No…_she thought, and began to panic. If he left, she would surely decelerate back into the hell that had brought her to this position.

"No!" She suddenly yelled, surprising herself and the boy. Lea grabbed his grey sleeve and pulled him back down. "Don't leave me alone! I'm so scared!" She began to sob, and then, like the many other habits she had developed in the past few months involving not showing any emotion at all, she tried to stop herself, and attempted to choke back the offending cries and gasps coming from her.

The hand was placed on her back and began its relaxing circles again. The boy was silent. There were no "shh's" or "It's going to be alright"s. But after a minute of Lea hopelessly trying to collect herself, he said

"Come with me then." And stood.

After flushing the toilet one more time and helping to gently aid Lea in her attempt to stand, the boy steadied her as she swayed and staggered through the opened bathroom door, which he also held open for her. It closed shut behind them silently as Lea stood, blinking from much brighter light than what had been in the small bathroom. As the sun-spots cleared from her vision, she was witness to one of the most beautiful things she'd felt in a long time.

Lea stood in a thin hallway--which was also littered lightly with an assortment of medical posters—the part of the hall to her right stopped at a closed door, no doubt the way to the main office-area, but the left opened up to a much larger room with the back wall almost completely covered in floor-to-ceiling windows.

The sun had burned a hole through the charcoal-grey clouds and was shining brightly through the clear glass, and illuminating the white room. Hanging crystal sculptures cast rainbow designs on the floor and walls, and as they leisurely turned in midair the shifting light moved the dazzling designs slowly around the room, giving it an otherworldly feeling of floating among the stars in broad daylight. Trembling and with squinting eyes, Lea slowly walked towards the glinting windows, regaining her balance along the way, and into the intense radiance that molded around her, encasing her in its warmth.

_Warmth. _

She could _feel it. _It wound its way all around her, pulsing softly, and it wove through her so she was almost emanating it herself. Walking up to one of the large windows, she placed her hands tentatively against the warm pane, awe and shock overwhelming her until she started to laugh, _warm _tears falling from her glistening emerald eyes. And she couldn't stop herself.

……..

_.:Earlier:._

Zexion awoke with a start, the horrible ringing from the school bell throwing him out of his dreamless slumber unmercifully. He sat up in his chair and stretched, sighing with content when his spine popped, releasing a little of the stiffness that had formed when he had been in such a horrible position for so long.

Slouching would definitely be bad for his posture, and as he sleepily scanned over the medical documents of some junior, he made a mental note to at least try to make it to one of the cots next time before he passed out.

Which he shouldn't be doing anyway. If he wanted to finish high school early and go to medical school to become a doctor, he needed to _not _fall asleep while doing something as simple as reading over the medical records of his peers and singling out individual papers to be filed in separate drawers. He couldn't afford to slack off even a little bit, or his whole plan for the future will fail, and he would be left the same way as his parents. Jobless hicks that don't amount up to anything.

When Zexion was eleven, in example of his parent's worthlessness, he clearly recalled them having a very bad gambling problem. Well, his dad had had a gambling problem, his mother, though, had an entirely different addiction. The year before he had turned eleven the gambling hadn't been much of an issue, but little by little, as time wore on, the amount of furniture in their small apartment had begun to dwindle until the only piece left was the moldy queen-size mattress that his parents slept on, leaving Zexion to huddle underneath a thin blanket on the smelly carpet in the futile attempt at warmth. (He hadn't liked sleeping with his parents because they either smooshed him between their smelly bodies like a human sandwich, or he'd get pushed off and have to sleep on the floor. So he opted to just sleep on the floor.)

Even the fridge was gone, but it had always been empty anyways. There had still been electricity and running water, but the furnace had been broken and never repaired, making the apartment horribly cold whenever the temperature went down outside because of a cold front from the north, and many of the light fixtures had been sold to settle debts, making it dark all the time in the small home.

After a while they had run out of things to sell and the landlord had started getting frustrated with the delayed rent payments, or receiving no rent at all, which had been the case most of the time.

Zexion's mom had told him one day while they were dumpster diving for anything of worth to sell that she was going to pay off the rent, and not to worry.

"_What about Daddy?"_ He'd asked.

"_Daddy….Daddy's doing the best he can. He needs our help, though. Now I've got a plan, but I'm going to need Zee's help. Can you do that? Can you help mommy?"_ Zexion had had nothing else to do but to agree to help, even though he was a bit nervous about what his mother had had in mind. He agreed nevertheless. After all, they _were _a family, and isn't that what people in families were supposed to do: help each other?

That night as Zexion's dad had laid passed out on the mattress, his mom had silently went over to where Zexion had been curled up and kneeled by his thin form, surprising him by suddenly taking him into a tight embrace. The warmth had been very welcoming to Zexion, who had been receiving almost nothing from the cloth wrapped tightly around him. Through his mom's dirt-covered shirt he could feel every bone in her body, and realized that he wasn't the only one going to bed with an empty tummy every night. He remembered she'd smelled strongly of some sort of old-smelling perfume and her hair had had the scent of cheap shampoo. He'd become conscious of the fact that she didn't smell any where _near _as horrible as she usually did, so she must've been going someplace special that night.

"_I love you."_ She'd breathed into his hair, surprising him further. _"I love you so, so much. Everything….it's all for you, baby. I love you so much. I want you to know that. I love you, and nothing is ever going to change that."_ Zexion's mom had tightened the embrace, and then let go.

"_Are you going someplace far away?"_ Zexion had whispered.

"_No, baby. I'll be back later tonight, I promise."_

"_You promise?"_

"_Yeah. I promise. Now go to sleep. And if your father wakes up and wonders where I am, just tell him…tell him I'm out taking a walk. Understand?" _

Zexion had nodded his little head, indigo eyes wide with innocent seriousness. His mom had gotten up and crept out the door.

It was after everything had been completely ruined that Zexion realized that she hadn't looked at him once. She'd been looking away, eyes averted in _shame. _Anger boiled up within him. He should have stopped her. He shouldn't have let her go. _Well it's too late, now, _he though bitterly for the thousandth time, and shuffled a group of medical papers with a little more force than necessary.

That next morning, though, he had woken up and found both his parents fast asleep on their mattress. He had sighed in relief at the sight of his mom sleeping. _She came back! _He had thought happily. He'd never once wondered where she'd gone or what she'd done. He hadn't realized how that one 'walk' would be the beginning of the end.

That day when his father had gone to 'work' (at the casino) and he and his mom were riding the 11:45 train to the beach to look for valuables with a metal-detector they had traded stolen phones for, he hadn't helped but noticed how tired his mom had looked. Dark circles had rimmed her sunken eyes, her hair had been messy and unkempt, and she'd smelled like sweat and something else. Over and over she had sighed or yawned or groaned and rubbed at her face or scratched at her head furiously. At the beach she'd stumbled and almost fell numerous times in the shifting sand, cursing and righting herself just in time before she face-planted into the white ground. Around 2:30 she had finally slumped down with a groan, taking off the headphones and placing the metal-detector down beside her. Zexion had sat down when his mom beckoned him by patting the sand beside her, and they were both silent as they had gazed out across the stormy waters.

It had been a cloudy day, and with the grey masses came winds blowing from the sea that had whipped Zexion's long grayish-blue hair back away from his face, and made him shiver as the cold penetrated through his ratty clothing and touched his super-thin body. His mother had seemed unaffected by the cold, and had stared at the dark horizon with dead eyes.

"_Mamma?"_ He'd asked hesitantly after a few minutes of silence.

"_What is it, baby?"_ she'd said, still looking out with no emotion on her face or in her voice.

Zexion had thought carefully about what he wanted to say, because seeing his mother like that had begun to make _him _sad, but he hadn't wanted her to get mad at him for being nosy.

"_Did you…have a nice walk last night?"_ He'd asked tentatively, and had watched his mom for a reaction. Well, it hadn't really been a reaction he had expected. She had finally looked at him, and then, with tears spilling from her eyes, hugged him fiercely.

"_Yeah, baby."_ She'd said, and Zexion had heard the tears in her voice. _"I had a nice walk last night."_ Relief had made itself known in him knowing that it hadn't been her strange outing that had caused her to be so weird that day. He was smiling softly as she pulled away, and then he had grown serious.

"_Well, you shouldn't go out so late because you've been really grumpy all day and I think that's because you didn't get enough sleep because remember when I was little you made me go to bed early or I would be grumpy in the morning so you shouldn't go to bed so late or you'll be too tired to do whatever you were going to do to help get munny for the scary man who owns the apartment we live in."_ His mom had just smiled at him sadly and then chuckled.

"_Yessir"_ She'd said with an amused glint in her eye.

But that night she'd snuck out again as soon as his dad was fast asleep. Zexion, who had been almost half-asleep himself, had only noticed when he'd gotten up to use the bathroom, and upon returning to his blanket found that the mattress was only supporting one person instead of two. Zexion had just gone back to having a restless sleep, ears pricked for any sound of a door opening or the whisper of clothes.

The next day his mom had been in the same worn-out condition she had been the day before, if not worse. That night she hadn't gone out, but the next night she did. And the night after the night after that. And two nights after that. For three weeks Zexion's mom had gone out every other night, or sometimes two or three nights in a row depending on how late his dad passed out, to an unknown place and came back at different times, but always came back tired and worn-out, and she had always jumped right into the shower, sometimes with her clothes still on. Zexion had from time to time heard her crying softly in the night. He had never understood why until after the shit hit the fan.

This erratic schedule of late-night 'outings' was changed suddenly when Zexion's dad decided to stay late at the casino one night because he was 'feeling lucky'. This was one of his mom's 'walk nights' and she had become a little worried at the news, but covered it up with a smile and a "Go win a jackpot for us!" and a kiss on the lips as he left. Then she was all seriousness, and no smiles. As soon as she had been sure that her husband was gone and not coming back for any reason, she had begun getting ready. She'd gotten into the shower and came out smelling like she normally did: old perfume and shampoo trailing after her as she moved about the room, picking up discarded clothes and shoving them into a cardboard box in the corner. She left after a few minutes, leaving the eleven year old Zexion all alone in the cold and dark apartment.

Zexion couldn't remember what he had been thinking about for those twelve minutes when he was by himself, but he could remember the serenity and comfort of being alone. For the first time, there wasn't a semi-drunk father crashing around the house, upset over another days loss at the casino, or a depressed mother wailing about how everything was horrible and they had no money and if only she had _listened_ to her mother and NOT gotten married right out of high school because then maybe everything would be _so much better_.

No, he'd heard none of that, and it had been _so peaceful._ He remembered that he'd wrapped his blanket around himself and sat down in front of the window, and just looked out, trying to imagine that the huge cracked and graffitied apartment complex blocking his view was gone, and in it's place was the stormy sea.

Dark clouds had already been circling ominously above, and heavy winds had pulled down on the swaying palm trees that had dotted around the crappy neighborhood and made the window rattle. But Zexion had been calm, unafraid of the pre-hurricane weather happening outside. He had turned around, looking around the filthy apartment room with his deep blue eyes, taking in every detail, feeling that everything that he had come to know and even love was going to end soon. Everything had been silent, like it was in a tense calm before a huge storm.

After those twelve minutes of stillness and tranquility were up, the door opened, and the landlord guy stepped inside, followed closely by Zexion's mom, who'd had a worried look etched on her face.

"….I really don't think we should tonight. And definitely not here. If Richard comes back—"

"Shut up." The landlord had been looking around, observing the mattress and had only glanced at Zexion before moving on, like he wasn't even there.

After looking at the mattress for a little while longer, he turned to Zexion's silent mom.

"Send your boy out." He'd said.

"No, please, let's just go back to your place—" She was cut off as the man grabbed her, one hand twisted into her hair, pulling her head back and mashing their bodies together, the other hand latched onto her arm in a bone-breaking grip.

"You want to keep living here? Then send him out." His mom had looked from Zexion to the landlord man, breathing heavily through her nose. "Either send the boy out, or he'll watch. Or maybe he can join us, huh?" He'd gripped her hair tighter, and she had gasped.

"Oh, God, no, please!" She'd begged. He shoved her back.

"Zexion, honey, go wait outside in the hall." She'd said after regaining her balance, a small amount of desperation in her voice. Zexion, recognizing the seriousness of the situation, had gotten up obediently, leaving his blanket discarded on the ground in front of the window, and walked towards his mom. The landlord man had smiled a yellow-toothy grin as Zexion had passed him, and to this day whenever he has nightmares about that horrible night, it's always that toothy grin that wakes him up, sweating and near-screaming in the dead of the night.

His mom had kneeled down to eye-level, grasping both of his arms in her shaking hands. "Baby, I need you to just wait outside in the hallway for a little while, just until me and Mister Jameson are done talking, okay?" The landlord-man had scoffed, and took another drag on the cigarette he'd just lit. His mom ignored him. "Now if daddy comes, you make sure and keep him from coming in, okay? Can you do that for me, Zee? This is super-important that you understand what I'm saying."

Zexion remembered that he'd looked at his mom with eerily calm and almost nonchalant eyes when he'd replied "I understand", before backing out of his mother's grasp and walking out the door, and shutting it behind him. He remembered that he'd sat there, his back against the door, his bony arms wrapped around his equally bony legs as he'd tried to zone-out the strange noises coming from behind him; '_Keep Daddy from going in' _an echoing mantra in his head. He remembered the intoxicating aroma coming from five doors down—Mrs. McGreevy's apartment—and, incredibly-important job aside, he remembered getting up and slowly making his way down the hallway after ten minutes of listening to his stomach growl hungrily. He couldn't remember if he'd knocked, or if the old woman had somehow known that a starving boy was standing outside her door, but suddenly the door was open, and the stoutly lady was standing in the doorway, all pitiful smiles and warmth. He remembered exactly the kind of cookies she had lured him inside with—Double Chocolate Chip cookies with chocolate batter and white chocolate chips scattered among the regular ones. Fresh out of the oven. He'd looked back down the hallway, just to make sure, before he'd gone inside, of course. But, _oh, _those cookies had been _heavenly. _They had been the best thing that he had ever put into his mouth. He hadn't been able to get enough of them.

"_Boy, when are you going to get a haircut? I can barely see your face! I don't know how you can see through that curtain over your eyes! And it's such an unnatural color, to boot! You'd think it was dyed except your eyebrows are the same!"_ She'd said, and then she'd begun talking about the 'boy's back in her day' and what the fashion had been like, and how everything had gone downhill when rock-and-roll had been founded. Zexion had just nodded and stuffed his mouth with more cookies. He remembered he'd suddenly heard a noise coming from the hall, and gotten up. He remembered opening Mrs. McGreevy's door and looking down the hall, and he remembered seeing his father, hand on the doorknob, the other hand turning the key in the lock. He remembered trying to call out to his dad, but he'd stuffed his face so full of cookies that whatever sound he'd made had been muffled by the food, brown crumbs flying from his mouth as he had attempted to stop his dad.

He remembered his dad opening the door just as he had caught up with him, swallowing the last remains of the chocolaty goodness he had so wished to savor. He remembered the look on his father's face when realization hit home at what he was witnessing. He remembered following his father's unreadable gaze to rest on two figures doing something that was _definitely _not 'just talking'. He could remember in exact detail the distinctive tattoo designs that were inked on the landlord's _very_ naked body. He could remember the horrified look on his mom's face as she recognized her husband standing in the doorway, and she had quickly wrapped the blanket—_Zexion's _blanket—around herself as the landlord had scrambled to pull his pants on.

The few seconds after that is a jumble of images in Zexion's memory, because everything had happened so fast. He could remember, though, his father's booming voice as he yelled at his wife, because at the same time lightening cracked at a deafening volume and flashed outside, illuminating the room. He remembered the landlord-man pushing past him roughly, holding his nose as blood gushed from it and a cut on his lip, and he had staggered down the hall with a deadly glare in Zexion's direction before turning the corner. The memories shortly following that are gone, too. His father must have left after the landlord-man, but not before yelling at his mom some more, because Zexion could remember her sobbing heavily, one hand holding Zexion's blanket up, the other holding the side of her face, where he must have hit her after roughing up the landlord's face. Zexion, after standing in the doorway for what had seemed like an eternity, had sat himself in front of the window again, staring out with a blank expression, shock making him mute as his mother cried.

Some time later, it may have been thirty minutes, it may have been two hours, Zexion can remember _them _coming. There had been about three cars and eight men in total. They'd squealed to a stop beside the building, one of the cars mounting the curb. The men had gotten out and run into the building. It was calm again for about four minutes, and then the door to Zexion's apartment had burst open. Everything after that is another blender filled with images.

He can remember they'd been taken to a vacant lot.

His father had been there, being held up by two men, his face had been covered in blood. He'd been swaying; about to fall over and very unsteady on his feet.

His mother, now clothed, had held onto Zexion, keeping him as close to her as possible as she was flanked by two mean-looking men.

Suddenly his dad was doubled over, holding his stomach and then collapsing on the ground. Someone had grabbed his mom, yanking Zexion from her grasp, and threw her down next to her gasping husband. She started to cry again.

Zexion remembered seeing the landlord-man, standing with his arms crossed over his chest, a smug smile on his face, his yellow teeth standing out in the darkness. Then a shot rang out. The landlord crumpled to the ground with a look of surprise and then death.

Another man had kneeled down in front of Zexion, in his hand he held a gun.

The wind had started to pick up dust and dirt from the empty lot, but then it had begun to drizzle. Thunder rumbled.

He couldn't remember what the man said. Something about his parents doing something wrong and about him 'paying for the debts.' He doesn't know. The conversation had been knocked out of his head by a punch to the jaw.

He'd staggered and fallen to the ground. Someone had grabbed him by his shoulder-length hair and kneed him in the nose. Then he was lifted up and punched again. A horde of heavy boots had come down upon him, connecting with everything vulnerable, mostly his stomach and back.

He couldn't remember anything past the twelfth hit, when someone had gotten a two-by-four and struck him in the head. Repeatedly.

His mom had screamed, though, until she'd been silenced.

It had been two hours before the police had come after a call from an unknown person. What they had found will probably haunt them forever.

Zexion had been brought by ambulance to the hospital, where he had stayed for four months, one month in a coma, the other three rehabilitating. When they had brought him in, He'd had a collapsed lung, a failing kidney, a lot of internal bleeding, a fractured skull, five broken ribs, a broken nose, a broken arm (with a dislocated shoulder), three broken fingers, and a broken leg that had been fractured in two places. He had gone through over thirty-six hours of surgery in all, one surgery in which he had flat-lined when they had tried to stop his internal bleeding and inflate his lung again. There's only so much an eleven-year old body can take, after all.

After being in a coma for five weeks, Zexion had woken up, practically encased in plaster and gauze, with no memory of anything, not even his own name. They'd called out to him with it as soon as he'd become conscious, so it had been the first thing he'd remembered. The breathing tube that had kept him alive for those five weeks had made him unable to talk, but after a few days of him breathing on his own, they had taken it out. Then they had begun asking him all kinds of questions, questions he didn't have the answers to for a long time. He just couldn't remember anything beyond flashes and fragments. He did have nightmares, though. He still does.

It took him almost two and a half years to fully recover, and that included gaining his memory back, healing his many broken bones, and learning how to walk and move again. Mental therapy had taken longer. It was during those times in the hospital, though, that he had met one of the most important people in his life.

It had been a month after he had woken up from his coma when he'd first met Xemnas. Zexion had been sitting on his bed, getting bombarded with the same questions, over and over and _over _again, when he had silently snapped. He had been feeling restless for the last couple of days, but none of the nurses or doctors would let him walk around or even leave his room, not even for a _second_, because the Social Services woman was worried he'd run away--even in his physical state--and they couldn't risk something happening to him. Worse-case scenario was that the gang members that had killed his parents would try to come and get rid of him so he couldn't go to trial against them. But tough murderer-looking guys wouldn't dare walk into a hospital in broad daylight and try to kill a memory-less child, right?

Well, Zexion, after being asked for the zillionth time if he'd remembered anything from the night he'd been nearly killed or anything before that, had stood up, albeit a little shakily, grabbed his crutch with his right hand and the IV pole with his IV bag hanging from it with his casted left hand, and had hobbled quickly out the door, the nurse following quickly behind him with many-an objection. The casts on his leg and arm had been heavy, and the movement had been making them ache terribly, but he hadn't cared.

Down the hall he'd shuffled, passing nurses with scrubs that had all kinds of prints on them, from dinosaurs to fairies and puppies. The walls were white but the many doors that lined them were decorated with pictures and other things, and the themed wallpaper inside the rooms had also been decorated with pictures and cards and stuffed animals and balloons. Zexion had had nothing in his room except a silver teddy bear that had sat silently in a chair in the corner that the Police had left when they'd tried to get information about the men who'd beaten him, thinking that using the bear as some sort of bribe they would enable them to get information from him. Even if Zexion had remembered anything, the ploy wouldn't have worked. The Police had been at an impasse since all the evidence at the scene had been washed and blown away with the storm, and had been desperate enough to try to use bribery on a child.

Fuming from the bad memories, Zexion had stumbled down the hallway, ignoring the calls from the nurse, and rounded a corner where he'd tripped and collapsed at the feet of one Dr. Xemnas, who had looked down from reading a file at the pitiful boy with a calm expression, as if small boys fell in front of him all the time. The nurse had caught up, sputtering an apology before trying in vain to get Zexion up. He had just sat there, looking down at the ground with angry tears dripping down his face, all his energy now gone from his body and mind. He had just wanted to disappear. To melt into the linoleum and be free from the pain that made his whole body throb. Free from the nightmares and horrible visions. Free from fear.

Zexion had looked up, still slightly angry, to confront the strangely _yellow _eyes of the tall man standing in front of him, where he had been caught and held in their deep gaze for what had seemed like forever, the anger in him getting sucked out with each passing second. A strange sort of feeling had come over him then as he sat there. His skin had started to prickle, and a wave of déjà vu had come over him. In that time Zexion can swear Xemnas had read his mind and heard the silent plea for even a _minute_ of freedom from the constricting binds of his dull room. He'd _hated _that place.

After that moment's pause in which he had studied the fallen Zexion with an unreadable face, the tan doctor picked up the forgotten crutch and had handed it to the nurse.

"_Take this back to his room."_ He'd said in a deep voice. The blushing nurse had nodded but objected.

"_He's not allowed to leave his room, though."_ She'd said in a small-yet strong voice.

"_So says who?"_ He'd asked, his voice dangerous and his eyes narrowing.

"_Um…the…um, Maggie...um…Shauven, the woman Social Services sent, and detectives…uh…Sam Henshaw and Katy Stanly, who are working on his case. They said he's not allowed to leave his room for anything_" She'd begun to almost visibly wither under the tall doctor's gaze.

"_Since when have policemen started caring about the welfare of hospital patients, especially Sam Henshaw and Katy Stanly_?" He'd spoken slowly, the only evidence of his anger being in his voice and his narrowed eyes. _"I think I know how to care after people more than those two idiots."_

The nurse had gripped the small crutch in both her hands, and had taken a small step back. _"N-no one is saying you don't know how to take care of people,"_ she'd said quickly. The tall, silver-haired doctor had just stood over Zexion, silently glaring at the fidgeting woman until her whole face had turned red and her will had finally crumbled.

"_W-well just…don't go too far, okay? I mean, I could lose my license if anything happens to him."_ Zexion had glared at the floor again. _Of course. She only cares about herself. Stupid grownups. _

"_Naturally."_ The doctor had said. _"We wouldn't want you to lose your job for the sake of a child_." That voice had been so full of dark emotion that even Zexion had shuddered as the words drifted over him to hit the small nurse squarely in the face.

The nurse, after recovering slightly from the verbal blow, had given him one last almost guilty look before quickly turning on her heel and walking away towards where another nurse had been calling for her. Xemnas had stood, tall and proud, arrogance radiating off of him, making the few nurses and doctors who had been meandering around the hallway edge away slowly, not to mention cringe from the heat of his glare that he had swept around, almost seeming to dare anyone else to question his authority further.

Zexion can remember looking up at him and wondering what kind of person this man was who had enough guts to go against police orders, and not even break a sweat. He remembered thinking how weird Xemnas had looked, what with his tan skin, yellow eyes and long, silver-white hair. In the eyes of a young boy, he looked like an alien or, as Zexion had analyzed him further, almost super-villain like. He was just too creepy to be human_. _

As he had looked over Xemnas with a critical eye, he remembered noting that there was really nothing all too conspicuous about his wardrobe, just ordinary grey slacks with a black shirt. Both were in pristine condition, the same as his white doctor's coat. He'd had no accessories; no rings or necklaces or bracelets. Nothing expensive. His wrist had only sported a normal-looking watch that had peeked out from underneath his sleeve, catching a small glint from the lights buzzing quietly above.

Xemnas's cold gaze had been trained back on Zexion, and the two had seemingly examined each other and judged silently about each other's positions. A twinge of fear had risen in Zexion as he had thought that maybe being with this giant of a man wasn't such a great idea, being in his physical shape he hadn't had enough strength to be able to run away if the doctor had tried to hurt him, and the fact that that same doctor had been actually _glaring _at him hadn't made him doubt the fear, but only seemed to make it grow.

He had decided that he didn't like this man. Not at all.

…

After being gently placed in a wheelchair (though against Xemnas's good intentions there had still been a shooting pain throughout Zexion's arm and leg as they were jostled slightly in the transfer from the ground to the chair--however Zexion had remained completely silent, only scrunching up his face to keep himself from crying out) with hands large and probably strong enough to break him in half. He had taken the IV bag and had hooked it on a pole connected to the back of the chair, and then the two had begun to move down the hall, Zexion sitting stiffly in the wheelchair as he observed the changing environment around him. He'd gotten a glimpse at the doctor's nametag clipped to the front of his coat as he had been held briefly in his strong arms.

_Dr. A. Xemnas. Head Pediatric Surgeon. _It had said.

_Xemnas…._Zexion had thought. _What a weird name…_

As Zexion had mulled over the weirdness of the strange doctor wheeling him about, they'd ended up going all over the hospital, Zexion trying to ignore all the pitiful or even disgusted looks pointed his way, making him feel suddenly so very self-conscious of every scrape and bruise on his body, which resulted in him hiding behind his bangs, and they'd ended up stopping in the food court. Xemnas had wheeled him in front of a table that had sat somewhat away from everyone else, and then, after fixing Zexion with another unexplained glare, had turned and gone to the coffee bar, returning with a newspaper and a small cup that had steam snaking lazily up from it. The coffee had been, no surprise, black. Xemnas hadn't, and still doesn't seem like the type of man who enjoys sugar much. Or anything sweet, for that matter.

Xemnas had set his cup down after sitting and crossing his legs, and then opened the newspaper, not sparing Zexion a second glance. A very tense silence had grown between the two, Zexion feeling slightly hurt as he realized the doctor hadn't brought him anything, and then after a while he'd started glaring daggers through his curtain of blue hair at Xemnas who had remained aloof, sipping his coffee and turning the pages of the newspaper ever-so-calmly. Zexion can remember staring at the cup of coffee, the black liquid swirling slowly within it, and the strong, bitter smell of it hurting his nose. That cup of coffee and the way Xemnas would casually lift it to his lips and then set it back down again with a small, dull clink annoyed the living hell out of him. He'd hated the strong scent that ceaselessly assaulted his nose and burned the back of his throat. He'd begun hating Xemnas, too, for not being as sympathetic as everyone else seemed to be, and for being so god-damned _full of himself. _

There'd also been another factor—that unknown thing that had awakened in him, making him want to _serve _that man sitting silently in the hard plastic chair. Zexion had felt angry at himself for supposedly falling under the spell that somehow makes everyone bow to Xemnas's every whim. He'd felt completely stupid thinking about ways to keep this _stupid man _happy, or at least content. He'd wanted to bash his head against something and make the thoughts go away.

Xemnas had glanced over after a while--probably because he had felt the two small eyes boring holes in the side of his head--and then had calmly folded up the newspaper, placing it beside the half-full cup of coffee, and then had proceeded to lean back and lace his fingers together and rest them on his lap. His eyes had never strayed from Zexion's, and they'd continued to have a stare-down until the silver-haired man had spoken.

"_Do you remem—"_ He'd started to say, but that had been enough to set Zexion off. He was sick and _tired _of people asking him questions _all the time _about his _stupid memory! _Why couldn't they just go and look for the men who had hurt him in the first place? _Why didn't_ _anyone understand? He didn't want to remember! _Lashing out with his good arm, he had swept his hand out and connected with the coffee cup, sending it and the liquid inside it flying to the ground, where the cup had shattered and the coffee had spilled out everywhere.

The cafeteria had become silent for one long moment, all eyes on the small boy covered in gauze and plaster, and then whispers and silent conversations had filled the air; filled Zexion's mind with their nonsense. The glare that he had had focused on the spot where the cup had been intensified until it had all but caught the table on fire. His clenched hand had started to hurt. Looking up, Zexion had met Xemnas's narrowed eyes until his vision swam with angry tears.

_Don't. _He'd wanted to say. But didn't. Couldn't.

There had been a lot of things Zexion had wished he'd said back then, back when it would have maybe made a difference. The long conversations he could have had floated around in his head at night when sleep was out of the question and he wasn't being plagued by nightmares. It hadn't been that he'd forgotten how to talk, he'd just…hadn't been able to. The words would form in his head, and they'd be right on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't form the strength to push them out, to get them out in the open.

Part of it had been the anger.

The other had been fear.

He'd felt horribly angry at everything that day in the cafeteria. Everyone had been idiots in his mind; everything they'd done had been pointless and stupid. He hadn't understood this doctor, this _Xemnas _guy, who had been thrust into his memory-less life only to make absolutely _no sense at all, _and said doctor's arrogance and sense of superiority had only fueled his rage.

After looking so _calmly _at the mess on the floor, Xemnas had so _calmly _turned his narrowing gaze to Zexion, and had said, in a so _very calm _voice, _"I suppose you don't, then."_ Afterwards he'd been completely silent for the rest of the venture, not even saying any form of farewell as he'd left Zexion alone in his dull cage of a room.

For a week and a half Zexion had remained in his room, resting and thinking about how stupid people were but at the same time wishing Xemnas would come and take him out again. The police had stopped by after two weeks, and under the supervision of Maggie Shauven, they had questioned him and tried to wheedle information from him, but to no avail. He hadn't even acknowledged their presence in his room, initially opting to drown out their voices by submersing himself deeply into his thoughts.

He'd been quietly falling into a bottomless despair after the anger had worn off, the many questions he couldn't answer only making him sink farther. He'd been so alone. So utterly alone. His thoughts had kept going over the explanation the police had given him about his parents. Kept mulling over the fact that the only family he'd ever known was gone. Dead.

Murdered.

Zexion can remember wishing that he'd died, too. Wishing that the doctors had just left him dead on the table instead of bringing him back. Whenever he'd begin to drift off to sleep, he'd hope that maybe instead of waking up, he'd go into another coma, and stay frozen in that unconscious state until the day that he would finally die. In a way he'd been suicidal, though he'd never taken a knife to his wrists or drank bleach or tried to strangle himself with his bedsheets. No, those were too painful. He hadn't wanted anymore pain.

So he'd just stopped eating.

The nurses had really gotten their panties in a twist whenever they'd come back and find his plate still covered in food, cold and untouched. Mrs. Shauven had really freaked out upon hearing that he'd started refusing to eat, and had fallen way underweight. She'd yelled at the police for 'bothering an already traumatized child', and then had turned her fury upon the nurses and doctors in charge of him, accusing them of not doing their jobs right and threatening to move him to a different hospital. In the end and against Zexion's will, they'd hooked him up with another IV and fed him that way just to shut her up.

Three days after they'd started him on the drip line, Xemnas had come by. Zexion had been asleep, dreaming of nothingness, and had slowly woken up to the strong scent of coffee. He had opened his eyes slowly, allowing them to get used to the sudden onslaught of light, until he had opened his eyes fully and realized that the lights in his room hadn't even been on, and the only light had come from the window to his left. Looking around weakly for the source of the dreaded smell, he had turned his head to see Xemnas sitting in the chair in the corner, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his fingers laced together and his yellow eyes had yet _again _been glaring at him for no apparent reason. Looking to his right he'd seen a cup of coffee sitting on the small table there, and had crinkled his face in obvious disgust. He'd wanted to knock it down to the floor, but lacked the strength to even lift his arm. Looking back Zexion had caught an amused glint in Xemnas's eyes, amused and _mischievous. _

"_I thought that'd wake you up." _He'd said, and his smile had grown bigger as Zexion had glared at him. Or attempted to, anyway.

_Go away._ Zexion had wanted to yell at him, but didn't. Almost as if he'd read his mind, Xemnas said _"I'm not going to be leaving anytime soon so you might as well will wipe that look off your face and get comfortable. I'm going to ask you some questions."_ The soft glint that had previously been in his eye hardened and all traces of amusement disappeared from his face. He'd lowered his hands and sat back, crossing his legs and assuming the role of someone with authority and power. Zexion's glare had only deepened at the man, defiance locking his mouth shut and throwing away the key.

"_Now, normally when I speak to patients and ask them questions, I expect answers. I don't expect them to throw my coffee all over the cafeteria in a childish temper tantrum." _He'd paused to let the insult sink in._ "Before you had lashed out and ruined my drink I had been in the middle of asking a very important question. That being if you remember me." _The question had startled Zexion, but he masked his look of surprise quickly with that of anger again. Of course he hadn't remembered him. _He'd had no memory. Of anything. _How stupid was this guy?

"_It was me." Huh?_ Zexion had thought. _It was you what? "I was the one who saved you, the day you died on the operating table."_ A chill had swept over him. This man, he'd thought, is the reason why I'm suffering. He's torturing me on purpose! He's evil!

There'd been something, a strange sort of glow, in the doctor's eyes that had stopped his thoughts short. _"I probably would have never realized you were one of them if I hadn't seen your birthmark." What? What birthmark? _Unease and fear had started to bloom within him as the glow in Xemnas's eyes turned sinister. _"Zexion;" _He'd murmured, _"Number Six."_

The air had stilled around Zexion, his breath had haltered and his heart had stopped. He can remember the jolt that had gone through him, making the hairs on his arms stand on end, and then a strong wave of déjà vu had overwhelmed him; that had made things, _memories,_ appear in his mind. As suddenly as they had appeared, they'd disappeared, leaving a confused mess of Zexion. _"_I _remember who you were, but the question is if _you_ remember who you were, or better yet, who I am." _Xemnas had gotten up after eyeing Zexion's reaction, dragging the chair with him, and finally had stopped and sat down to the left of his bed, presuming his superior position. Zexion can remember locking eyes with Xemnas, and feeling that stupid feeling of submission rocket throughout him, making him physically tremble. _"Zexion, I am your Superior," _He'd begun, his deep voice laced with something completely unknown, something, maybe excitement, glowing in his eyes. _"You will obediently answer all my questions without hesitation. Do you understand?" _Zexion had nodded numbly, his eyes never breaking away from Xemnas's golden ones. And then, after gulping down a few lung-full's of air, Zexion had opened his mouth and spoken, his voice hoarse and shaky from misuse.

"_I-I understand…sir." _

It had been the weirdest conversation Zexion had ever had, and he hadn't really understood anything Xemnas had said, especially the 'Number Six' part, or the 'remembering who he was' thing.

He hadn't been able to say much that day because he hadn't been able to remember anything the surgeon had been asking about, and he'd seemed a little disappointed that Zexion hadn't remembered him, though as Zexion had thought about it, he wouldn't have remembered him anyway because he'd been unconscious when they'd brought him in. Still, he wasn't sure that that had been what the surgeon had been talking about, and he had felt that he'd let Xemnas down somehow.

Xemnas had said that it was all right that he didn't remember, though, and that he didn't have to remember everything at the moment. He didn't want Zexion to over-work his mind. He'd said that he'd explain everything someday when Zexion was older. That that would be the best time for them both.

Well it's been a long time since that day, he thought, and Xemnas still hadn't explained himself or any of the oddness surrounding that visit. Zexion is beginning to run out of patience.

The strangest thing was that, regardless of the fact that Zexion had kind of hated Xemnas, that day an almost familiar relationship had started between them; a manically depressed boy and an egotistical surgeon. But there had been something _deeper _than just that. Something mysteriously comfortable.

Everyone had been completely blown away when news that Zexion had suddenly started talking, and to _Xemnas, _had reached their ears_. _No doubt they'd thought that the strict surgeon had probably scared him into submission, but in actuality it had been that strange, deeper connection that they shared that had made Zexion speak. He had still refused to speak to anyone besides Xemnas, of course, which had royally pissed off the police.

Despite everyone thinking it was strange, Xemnas had tried to visit often, sometimes taking Zexion to the food court, other times just throughout the different parts of the hospital. These outings never lasted more than an hour; Xemnas had a busy schedule and despised being late to anything.

For several weeks he and Xemnas would go out, almost never talking except for a few snide comments from the surgeon, usually about Zexion's physical-being but one time about his hair, which had been cut off to a 'normal length'. Mrs. Shauven had thought it had grown too long, and had had it cut. Zexion can remember his head feeling very light and cold for some time before he gradually got used to the shortness of it.

Xemnas had given him hell about it, of course. He just couldn't pass up an opportunity to make fun of the eleven-year old.

That arrogant bastard…

Zexion had also slowly begun to regain his memories back, most of them reappearing after some form of nightmare that had woken him up in a panic and on the verge of screaming. Though most of the time it was the insistent prying from Xemnas that resulted in a small flash, or series of flashes that would emerge from the depths of his conscious. At times he'd felt overwhelmed with the new knowledge about his life, about who he'd been and who his parents had been. Remembering all their failures and mess-ups had been one of the hardest things, and talking about them had been even more difficult.

Harder still was when he'd finally started remembering the night everything had happened. Reliving the experience to Xemnas had nearly killed him all over again.

Xemnas had only ever made him tell what had happened once, almost never bringing up the matter again except to confirm something about a certain part of a memory. He'd been trying to piece together what had happened with the things Zexion had remembered, not really succeeding but at least making sense of the tangled mess to better ease his mind.

Zexion's wounds had started to heal as well. The stitches on his abdomen had been taken out and then shortly after the ones in his head had been, too. His fingers had healed about the same time that his arm got its cast off, though his leg had taken much longer because of the multiple fractures. He'd steadily gained a little weight, or at least enough so that he wasn't _dangerously _underweight like he had been, and they'd taken out the IV that had been feeding him before he'd started eating food again.

His downcast mood had lifted slightly after finding a companion in Xemnas had kind of gotten rid of the lonely feeling inside of him, though he had missed his parents for a short while and the little moments that he could remember that he'd had with them. The parts when his dad wasn't drunk and his mom was happy and they had almost been like a family.

But all those little moments still did not balance out what they had done; the living hell they had made of Zexion's childhood, and the horrible mess they'd made for the rest of his life.

The police had, after several months of detective work and prying information from Zexion, finally figured out what had gone down that night, and had located and arrested a majority of the men who had been in that vacant lot that stormy evening.

Horribly long story short, in desperate need of munny to pay the rent and other things, his parents had taken desperate measures to meet those needs. His dad had gone and started cheating at the casino, and his mom had been selling herself to needy men. In one last desperate act, his mom had bedded the landlord, who had been in a large gang that owned the building. His dad, after walking in on them, had gone and gotten drunk at a bar nearby. In his alcohol-induced stupor he had trusted a complete stranger to his secret: that he'd been using cheats to win card games at the casino. Well, apparently, the man had been in league with the gang that, along with owning the apartments they'd lived in, had also owned the casino, and the news that they had been cheated out of some of their money did not suit well with the gang, and they had had Zexion's dad roughed up a bit before taking him to the vacant lot to meet his family, and eventually his gruesome death. Zexion's mom, on the other hand had really not been so deserving of her death. Even though she had been prostituting herself, she hadn't meant any harm by doing it, really only thinking about trying to make ends meet than anything else. The landlord, Mr. Jameson, who's body had been found a few weeks after the incident, had been killed on the account of allowing Zexion's mom to trade sex for room and board, which had made no profit for the building, and thus the gang, so the leader had killed him.

And Zexion himself…he had been part of the payment toward the deep debt his parent's had gotten into. Himself and his mom. They'd gotten to her too before they'd killed her. Of course they'd done very _different _things to her.

_In an even shorter sum-up, _Zexion thought bitterly, _my dad was a dishonest drunk-and-gambler, and my mom was a whore. _

His slight frown turned into a grimace as he stared at the open file cabinet before him. All this remembering about his sullen past and his screwed-up parents was beginning to distract him. He should have been done putting these files away by now.

After filing away a few more papers, he quickly shut the cabinet drawer and locked it with a key held around his neck by a red and orange lanyard. _Enough of that, _he thought, and quickly gathered his things and stuffed them in his messenger bag, pushing the bad memories to the back of his mind, but hesitated before leaving the dull room.

Outside, large and foreboding charcoal-grey clouds hovered ominously above, dragging their water-weight with them and ultimately threatening another storm like yesterday's horrid example. The fog had burned off, but in its wake had left everything cold and damp and dripping, and the frost had left a cold bite to the air.

Looking from the giant glass windows and around the room he thought how almost useless the brand-new edition to the infirmary was, especially the small enclosed garden beyond the windows. Since it was a private office-and-storage room that no one had a key to except himself, Mrs. Vasset the nurse, and the principal, no one would be able to see it.

_If it wasn't such a great place to escape to, I would have complained about the amount of munny wasted on building it. _He thought and then turned to leave.

He passed by the new and still unused tack-board situated to the right of the new bathroom as he walked down the twenty-foot hallway to the door at the end, trying to position the strap of his messenger bag so that the heavy weight of the books inside wouldn't hurt as much on his bony shoulder. The brand-new hall was bare of any pictures or notices, very much unlike the old, much more used part of the infirmary which had all sorts of posters and pictures of Mrs. Vasset's family and favored students and pets. The tack board there was overflowing with her cherished memories; forever frozen moments in pictures, old and new. She'd taken down some of the posters that coated the walls and put them up in the new bathroom in order to free some space to make it less cluttered, though they would probably have to get rid of a lot more if she wanted to accomplish anything.

The kind and gentle nurse had also tried to bring a little life into the new pristine-white and relatively boring room by hanging a few prism crystals in the windows, saying cheerfully that the sun would make them reflect the light around, like little disco-balls. She had also remarked that they would brighten up the room, and maybe his day if he'd just stop brooding all the time. He had ignored the comment and gone back to stocking up one of the many cabinets with medical supplies, frowning slightly.

That had been four days ago, before school had started, and a day after he'd met with Maggie Shauven, so of course he'd been slightly moodier than usual. She had been checking up on him ever since he'd been placed with his godfather, a man who'd apparently been very close with his father way back when, and who also happens to be his English teacher. Whether or not the man was any good at teaching has yet to be determined. He hadn't arrived at school yesterday, much to the school's dismay, or at home the night before, and Zexion had had to leave school early to go and find him because of a telephone call from a suspicious location, made by the strange teacher who had sounded quite disheveled and groggy over it. Zexion had, believe it or not, yelled at the man for being so irresponsible, and for probably losing his job, but he ended up keeping it by convincing the school with a very thought-out and reasonable excuse.

Though his godfather was almost completely useless when it came to anything trivial like household errands or anything involving any responsibility, he was a genius at literature and anything of the like, especially when it came down to creativity with the mind, thus the reason why he was able to lie so well and almost never get caught.

Zexion scowled as he locked the private office-and-storage room door behind him. _That bastard could fool anyone with his stories. _He thought and tucked the lanyard beneath his jacket.

After looking to his left where four empty cots lay separated by thin walls and closed off from the hall by only small blue curtains, Zexion took note of another slow day in the infirmary. Of course, it's only the second day of school. He thought. But you never know who might collapse in gym or otherwise cut off their fingers in Shop. Though he wouldn't mind the work, he was sure that the kindly nurse would just take over and only have him clean up the blood and fetch supplies and whatnot; simple chores that would make him feel like an idiot. Without a doubt he was very happy to have been able to become some-what of an assistant to the nurse, a job that had taken much bribery and persuasion from his godfather to obtain, but he was hoping to do more than just file papers and restock supplies and take temperatures. He didn't want to become a nurse.

He wanted to be a doctor.

Zexion passed the four mini-rooms to his left and then the bathroom to his right, and continued straight and then left into the small waiting room smothered in posters and pictures. There was a dull clinking noise of the cowbell tied to the door knob as Mrs. Vasset came in, arms full of medical forms and other things. She jumped when she saw him, nearly dropping what she was holding, a soft 'oh!' passing from her lips before she recovered and smiled.

"Goodness, you startled me!" She said, laughing with an embarrassed flush on her face. After setting her load down on a counter next to a small sink she turned towards Zexion with a wrinkled hand on her chest and a surprised smile on her face. "I didn't think you'd still be here! The tardy bell rang near ten minutes ago!" She said, looking at the watch around her wrist before brushing back a stray strand of black hair and tucking it behind her ear. "Did you finish filing all those papers?"

Zexion nodded.

The nurse looked relieved. "That's great! And you put all the freshman files in the first drawer, the sophomore's in the second, the junior's in the third, and the senior's in the fourth? And put tabs on the files that need to be signed?" Zexion nodded to both and the nurse's smile broadened, the corners of her eyes forming crows-feet. "Really, Zexion, I don't know what I'd do without you." She said and picked up the pile of papers again.

"Well," She huffed, shifting the heavy load in her arms, "you better skeedadle on to class before you get into trouble. I'll send an email to your teacher to excuse your tardy, but it's the first and last time I'll do it. Now I don't want you to lose your job but you helping me isn't an excuse to not learn other things, things you're required to know. Now what class do you have now?"

"English." Zexion replied.

Mrs. Vasset blinked. "Oh. Well, then. I'm sure he won't count you tardy. Go on, now." She said when he remained standing stoically. "Git! You're almost twelve minutes late now."

Zexion nodded again and walked past her. He opened the clanging door and left, trying to ignore the look of pity that had crossed over the nurse's face as he had gone by her. He didn't need pity. Not from her, not from anybody. He'd gotten enough of that when he'd been younger.

Nurse Vasset was one of the select few who knew of Zexion's past, half because she had to know and had been told when Zexion had applied for his job, and the other half because they (the DI Police and Maggie Shauven) didn't want the press to track him down, and therefore the gang that they believe might be after him still. Which is also the reason why he'd been sent to live so far away from his hometown—the gang, or what's left of it, is still trying to get to him to pay back what his parents had done. And since he had survived that fateful night with mostly intact memories, he was especially dangerous to them as the main witness in court.

Even though it's been five years since the attack, the date in which he is supposed to appear in court hasn't been set yet, which means that he's going to have to continue to hide away, staying under the radar and out of trouble like a good little boy until the police contact Maggie with the date.

In any other person's shoes, Zexion probably would have become a very timid and frightened person because of the day-to-day worry over whether or not he was going to get shot or stabbed by someone that could be anyone walking down the street or in his school. But instead he had turned to just not thinking or talking about it, and he's been getting along with life pretty well so far with his completely emotionless attitude.

Ignorance is bliss, after all.

(A/N)  
End of Part 1.  
Part two will /hopefully/ be up soon. I'm not sure if it's going to be super-long like this one had been or not, but I'll definitely get to work on it.  
lol yay for Xemnas XD; :cough:Mansex:coughcough: XD;;  
Anyway, please review! Constructive critisicm is encouraged.


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